


take my whole life too

by goodmorninglou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Dom Harry Styles/Sub Louis Tomlinson, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Larry Stylinson Is Real, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Marijuana, Pain Kink, Smut, Subspace, Virgin Louis Tomlinson, all of the warnings are tagged at the beginning of each chapter, but in the mean time, how could i forget - Freeform, imma update these tags as i go, side Ziam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:22:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorninglou/pseuds/goodmorninglou
Summary: Louis knows three things, at the base of it all.He likes when Harry hurts him. He doesn’t know why, not really, but he knows that he likes it. Likes giving up control, likes feeling small and taken care of, likes being praised for taking whatever Harry gives him for as long as he gives it.He and Harry are meant to be. No matter what time they finally fall together, what day, what age, what place, the moment that they do, that’ll be it. It’s going to be them against everyone else, hand in hand for the rest of their lives. That’s been a given since they met. The half of Louis’ soul that’s missing is Harry’s.And, sans those two things, he doesn’t really know much of anything at all.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 110
Kudos: 250





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiiii so im not gonna lie this is kind of a smut fic that doesnt get to the smut until the end  
> however in the middle there's also louis and harry discovering who they are as people and being really fluffy and cute together  
> I AM NOT AUTHORIZING TRANSLATIONS OR REPOSTS AT THIS TIME. seriously y’all, unfortunately ive had some problems with translations and with reposting and it’s frustrating and stuff so sorry but please don’t ask, please don’t translate and please don’t repost. all my love <333  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: allusions to pain kink, dom/sub undertones, grinding, sort of allusions to a subspace but not during sex, possessiveness (kinda)  
> please enjoy!!

Two hours into Louis’ twenty-third birthday party, he decides Drunk Harry is his favorite Harry.

It’s the way he moves his hips, with the reckless joy of someone who abandoned any insecurity before they stepped in the room. The way he swings his sweat-damp, curling hair to the beat of the music and giggles at the way it shimmers under the flashing lights. The way he holds a fruity, blush-colored wine in one hand, the same wine that stains his lips, as the other raises above his head. The way his glazed green eyes flashed and danced just before they slid closed. He moves like a cloud, like a trundling mass of effervescence. Champagne bottled up in a human-shaped glass.

Louis giggled drunkenly from his perch on the couch, under Zayn’s arm. Smoke curled from the spliff between Zayn’s fingers, waving lazy patterns in the air before their faces. If contentment was a picture, it’s this: crossfaded on his birthday, surrounded by his friends, watching the way the fairy lights strung up around the flat dance across Harry’s golden face.

“What are you giggling at?” Zayn chuckled, blowing his drag in Louis’ face.

“Harry looks like the sun.” He tossed one hand lazily to the dance floor. “Look.”

It wasn’t a senseless claim. From the yellow flecks in his eyes to the sparkle of his boots, even the catch of light on the glass in his hand, he shimmered. A wave at sunset.

“S’pose he does.” Zayn agreed. They watched in tandem as Harry was pulled close by a girl in a pale dress, someone Louis didn’t know. The friend of a friend, in all likeliness.

It’s like a flash of lightning, the way Louis’ chest heats, smoke turning stale on his tongue, hands twitching recklessly and illogically on his jean-clad thighs. _No_ , some green-eyed creature in his chest rears, snapping it’s teeth. And, then; _Me._

He sat on his hands to keep from launching off the couch, but the way he turned to Zayn and pouted: “ _I_ want to dance with Harry.” couldn’t really be helped.

Zayn made a face. “Go dance with Harry, then.” He took a long pull and tapped the ash onto the carpet before Louis smacked the hand still draped across his shoulders. “Nothing’s stopping you.”

He has half a mind to say _that girl is, idiot_ , except, that girl really isn’t. He’s been wrapped around Harry’s finger since the day they met in that stupid initiation tour, but he’s not nearly blind enough to think Harry isn’t wrapped around _his_ right back. No long-legged girl is ever going to overthrow _Louis_ from the forefront of Harry’s every move.

“Styles.” Louis called over the echoing music, standing. Instantaneously, Harry’s gaze snapped to him, eyes brightening, like a siren call. A visceral, metaphysical answer. Louis preened under the attention, the blatant prioritizment. Harry shifted away from the girl, who stared after him in frustrated perplexity, and tipped his head to the side. “I want to dance with you.” Louis stated. He took Harry’s hand in his own and dragged him to the epicenter of the crowd.

Louis doesn’t know the song that’s playing, but it doesn’t really matter, in the end. The time, the place, the day, the song, the people, none of them can claim any significance in this moment. The only thing that does is Harry’s hands on his hips, Harry’s mouth on his ear, Harry’s eyes on his face. Harry’s laugh, tumbling prettily through the thrumming air, blanketing Louis’ skin like some angelic sheen of chiffon. It’s dizzying.

And through the bass, and the piercing laughs, and the ever-shifting myriad of bodies singing and making noise around his own, Louis finds bliss. Nothing bothers him, save the sweat on his spine where it’s pressed against Harry’s chest. It’s good then, maybe, that he’s not wearing any pants under his tight jeans. He dances, lazy and drunk-smooth, eyes closed to the melody. Lets Harry guide him, handle him, all to his own will and intention. It feels a bit like floating and a bit like falling and a tiny, tiny bit like immortality. Eternal euphoria. And maybe it’s the weed, but it feels too much like _Harry fucking Styles_ , like his thighs and his shoulders and his forearms. Like his ribs. But Louis is okay with it.

Harry’s fingers flexed, tucked into the hollow of Louis’ hipbones. Someone must jostle him from behind, because their bodies collide, fiercer than before, and Louis almost goes blind with it. Twin gasps tear from both their chests as his arse grinds illecebrously against Harry’s cock.

“ _Shit_.” Harry pants against his ear, so _fucking_ hot. His lips are wet and Louis’ stomach blazes and that’s all it takes, really, because he braces one hand on the solid muscles of Harry’s thigh and grinds his hips back once more.

It’s this: Louis has sat on Harry’s lap almost once a day since they met, felt the bulge of his cock against his bum a thousand times, but never once when he’s fucking _hard_. It’s this: Louis never knew the vague press of a cock against his arse could get him going this much, nearly gagging for it, already too caught up. It’s this: Harry’s dipping down to breathe wantonly and with aching tease against the juncture of his neck and shoulder. It’s this: Louis only gets harder from it, especially when the hands on his hips tighten to the point of pain, throbbing sorely through his bloodstream.

His head tipped back against Harry’s shoulder, nose turning into his sweat-damp neck to press headily against his pulse. It raced madly. He’s only there for half a moment before Harry’s hand slides, flat-palmed, up his chest. His knuckles brush against Louis’ throat when he grabs his jaw.

“ _Careful_.” He snarled. Something in his gravelly voice sent shocks radiating up and down Louis’ arms, palms prickling, mouth falling open as Harry turned his head away with a strong hand. “Public.”

Louis has the sense to bridle the breathy “Don’t care.” that knocks furiously against the back of his teeth. Still, he thinks Harry hears it anyway. Instead, he panted, “Harry.”

“What.”

“I--” he stutters, all breathless and befuddled. The words in his brain were abstract, disconnected. Like starbursts of color that never managed to blend. “I’m--”

Harry grabbed at his chin again, gentler this time, fingertips pressing into his jaw. “Don’t have to think so hard.” He says, and it’s so quiet that Louis only comprehends from the shapes Harry’s lips make against the shell of his ear. He turns fiery under the touch, the teasing slide of Harry’s hot skin. “Don’t have to think at all.”

One of them has to, is the thing. Louis prays it’s Harry. His ability diminishes with every passing millisecond. The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling do cartwheels the longer he stares at them.

“Fuck, Harry.” He gasped, hips rolling harder against Harry’s achingly hard cock.

Nails dig harshly into his collarbone. The heat and arousal that blooms is mind-numbing. “Don’t move your hips like that.” Harry said, even and demanding. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” He asks innocently. 

“Because I said so.”

Louis’ mouth snapped shut. Thoughtless. Obedient.

And it’s all so new, so unique, so unexplored. Louis’ a virgin, he doesn’t know what sex is meant to be like, what it’s supposed to make him feel. But, fuck, he can’t breathe around this, and it’s better than imaginable.

It’s like Harry is behind his eyes, tuning into his broadcasted thoughts. His hand loosens on Louis’ hip, and he grieves the loss of too-tight pressure. “Too much, Lou.” Harry says, firm and final, and he can’t even begin to describe how much he wishes it had been a question because his only answer would be _no, no, never_. “Come on.” Harry pet up and down his sides. He doesn’t even know they’re moving until his shoulder leans against the wall, away from the radiating heat of dancing bodies, and he _knows_ he looks wrecked because he _feels_ wrecked. A ship on the rocks. His body mourns the disappearance of Harry’s touch. He’s too cold now, mind still dancing among the clouds. “Come back, please.”

The Harry that had gripped his hips past the point of pain, who told him not to think, who’s only response to a challenge was _because I said so_ , that Harry has disappeared. It leaves behind the one Louis knows better. The one with the soft eyes and the grip that never tightens past feather-light. The juxtaposition makes his head swirl.

“Hazza,” Louis whimpers, and he doesn’t know if he’s asking this one to stay or the other to come back. His pantsless cock rubs achingly against the fabric of his jeans.

“I know.” Harry murmured, eyes hooded with some bluish feeling that Louis can’t sort out in the dim lighting. Maybe sadness. Maybe guilt. “I’m sorry.”

_What are you apologizing for_ , Louis thinks. Tries to say and abandons when his mouth won’t open. He wants something fervid and cathartic, something he can’t put a name to. Something that feels like floating weightlessly in a pool, staring at a blank sky with a blanker mind, letting only the wind drift him this way and that. But--but Harry is the wind. He wants Harry to decide where he moves.

“Wait,” he gasped desperately, grabbing sharply at Harry’s wrist, never mind that he hadn’t been going anywhere. “Harry, I want, I feel--”

Except nothing comes up but empty phrases and air, scribbles and dots and lines where sentences used to reside. It’s too much, too much when Harry is just standing there, hands clutching his own elbows like he’s afraid to reach out even though all Louis needs is a little steadying.

Basorexia is the overwhelming urge to kiss. Louis read it once on a list of strange words in a magazine. It sweeps over him now, all-consuming, so heavy it could blind him, that desire to have a mouth against his own. To be kissed and wanted and taken care of. The bass pounding through the soles of his feet make him nauseous, the kind that flips your stomach upside-down and shoves it into your throat.

“Calm down.” Harry says, taking a concerned step forward, except his voice is _that way_ again, guttural and rasping like the scrape of two massive boulders warped into some semblance of speech.

It’s the way Louis’ body forces him to comply, lungs expanding in a massive breath, hands stilling at his sides. It’s so sickeningly unfamiliar, this need to obey Harry’s commands, and he wants so much more of it, but with the dilapidation of his anxiety comes a flood of fatigue, weighing him down, down, down. His knees buckle beneath it, so Harry catches at his elbow.

“Are you with me?” Harry asked, gathering him close against his chest.

Louis deposited all his weight on Harry’s body, cheek pressed flat to his sternum. “Yes.” He murmured, and then, worried that Harry wouldn’t think it was enough, “Yeah, I’m right here.”

Harry’s palm smoothed down his spine through his sweat-soaked shirt, face softening with every passing moment as he looked down into Louis’ exhausted face. “Do you want to go to sleep or do you just want to sit down and get your bearings?” He asked, achingly level-headed in every place that Louis was disconnected and spinning in circles.

“Sleep.” He breathed shortly. He raised his arms up even when it felt like lifting anchors with jelly, lips parted. His head swam overwhelmingly. “Can’t walk.”

Harry didn’t pick him up, but his hands fell to the sides of Louis’ rib cage like he was about to. “Do you want me to make everyone leave?”

Louis shook his head, frowning. “No, don’t spoil the party.”

“Okay.” And then he _was_ in Harry’s arms, legs wrapped around his waist, head on his shoulder in a way entirely similar and different from the way it had been earlier. He can still feel Harry’s pulse, and it’s still racing. Something massive has changed, though, and in this derelict state of mind, he can’t really name it. Niall’s voice reaches his ears from somewhere far, and Louis lifted a weak hand in response, eyes flickering shut.

When he opens them, it’s because Harry is setting him down in bed, tenderly detangling Louis’ limbs from around his body. “There’s a good boy.” He murmurs, when Louis gets the hint and unhooks his ankles. Heat rushes like a silent supernova. “Come on, Lou, jeans off.”

He shook his head slowly. “Can’t. Not wearing pants.”

There’s a bang that sounds suspiciously like Harry’s shin colliding with the bed frame. Louis didn’t look down to see. “Why.”

He shrugged. Reached up to grip at Harry’s hand where it had raised to rake through his unruly curls. “Didn’t want to. Why did you do that when we were dancing?”

Through the moonsoaked darkness of Louis’ bedroom, he sees Harry’s head fall. His door is shut, and the revel of his birthday is but a distant pulse of sound, muted through the wood, like words from underwater. “I got carried away, you don’t have to think about it anymore.”

“I didn’t mind it.” Louis promised. His eyes slid shut slow enough to catch the surge of emotions flit across Harry’s heavenly expression, but he can’t make to open them again. His hand stays wrapped around Harry’s wrist. “I’m not virgin enough to not like stuff.” He shuffled to his side and hummed. “Stay with me.”

And what he really wants is for Harry to climb into bed beside him, cocoon him in those ridiculously lanky limbs until he’s wrapped up neat as a present, but he’s halfway to sleep and when Harry threads their fingers together and plants himself cross-legged on the carpet, Louis can’t tell him to come up. When he tries, all that comes out is an inarticulate jumble of letters, which Harry shushes gently, thumb stroking over his knuckles.

He doesn’t know what he’s discovered tonight. Doesn’t have a title for it. All he knows is that it’s _massive_ and he doesn’t know how it’s laid dormant this long, not when it’s so present now. How it remained unsuspecting. It feels like hiding a yacht beneath a blanket. Like _how the fuck have I gone this long without feeling like this before_. Even with his eyes shut, Louis feels like the world is spiraling around him, punch-drunk and woozy.

Harry tucked the duvet over his shoulders, fingertips brushing across his warm shoulder.

Louis falls asleep with a blush halfway to his cheeks and singing _happy birthday to me_ over and over in his sleep-addled head.

_Empty hand_ and _hangover_ are the first thoughts of the next morning.

He blinked his eyes open, still so thick with exhaust, squinting against the mid-morning sun that streams through the dusky windows. Harry isn’t there as he had been the night before, but his sparkly boots were still lying haphazardly on the floor.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing at the cut of his jeans into his stomach. He tossed them off, groaning, along with the day-old shirt, and threw on his joggers. They have holes in the knees, but he can’t find it in him to care. Harry’s enormous Packers jumper envelopes his torso when he tugs it over his head. His phone was nowhere to be found.

Louis threw the door open, head ducked against the seeping cold of the floorboards beneath his feet. He was met with boisterous laughs from the kitchen--none of them were Harry’s.

Niall, Zayn and Liam were arranged around the kitchen table, mugs of tea in hand, laughing about something Louis hadn’t caught. Queenie, Louis’ cat, was curled up in Zayn’s lap, white tail flicking contentedly.

“Where’s Harry?” He murmured, leaning against the door frame and rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Liam rolled his eyes. “Good morning to you too, Louis, did you sleep well? I slept fine. Would you like some tea for your inevitable hangover?”

Louis grumbled a half-fond _fuck off, Payno_ , as Niall giggled and responded: “He went to the gym.”

He frowned. “The gym? With a hangover? That’s…” a pregnant pause. “Strange. Even for him.”

Zayn stroked Queenie’s snowy head. “Did something weird happen last night?”

_Yes_.

“No.” Louis shook his head. “Why? Was he acting strange this morning?”

“Not any stranger than Harry always is.” Zayn cast him a suspicious glance that sent him barreling into a blush, head ducking in some misshapen effort to hide his reddening face. “But he came out of your room.”

The blush darkened. Niall whistled. “Nothing happened.” Louis said, only half-honest.

“Still a virgin?”

Louis chucked a roll at Liam’s head and stole the tea from under his nose, tipping the rest of it down his throat even when it scalded the roof of his mouth. “Still a virgin, you fucking twat.” He dropped the mug in the sink. “Also, you suck.”

“Whatever, I’ve gotta get going,” Liam stood and kissed the top of Louis’ head, chuckling when Louis batted him away. “Have fun being twenty-three, I’ll see you later today?”

“Sure thing.” Louis agreed, already absent-minded with Harry’s growing absence, taking Liam’s vacated spot. His fingertips prickled itchily. Like they craved Harry’s skin. Zayn stood to walk Liam to the door discreetly, as if they all didn’t know he’d be kissing Liam goodbye, and Queenie leapt from his lap into Louis’.

The moment Zayn had disappeared from the kitchen, Niall was whirring on him.

“Okay, spill, right now.”

Louis blinked with chilling slowness. “Spill what?”

“The last time I saw _you_ ,” Niall began, cocking a dusty brown brow. “Harry was holding you like you were a koala and you were half-passed out on his shoulder.” A pause. “Are you _actually_ still a virgin?”

“Shut _up_ , I’m still a virgin!” Louis snapped, far too loud. He wonders, if Harry were here, if he’d tell him to be quiet. They both wait in the silence for Zayn to reappear, so when he calls _I’m taking a shower_ and the bathroom door closes, the breath they let out in tandem is almost comical. “I have something to tell you.”

Niall shoved a biscuit in his mouth. “Okay, tell me.” He murmured around his mouthful.

“Last night, while Harry and I were dancing…”

Louis trailed off, reliving it, skin alighting with the already-fading memory of Harry’s touch. It’s still there, tingling, and he can feel it; the fingertips on his jaw, the palms against his hips, the mouth against his ear. The hard outline of Harry’s cock, grinding ruthlessly against Louis’ arse. The swell of Harry’s thighs beneath his hands. It sparks and trundles over his nerve-endings, waking the sleep-thick remains of his mind.

“He got hard, and then I got hard, and then…” he blushed crimson, edging on magenta. “I don’t know, he started, like, ordering me around, but it was really hot? And he was holding my hips really hard, but--it felt good. I liked it, I guess. But then he stopped, and it felt like I was falling, until he told me to calm down in this weird voice that he was using on the dance floor, so I felt really tired. And he was acting really weird or guilty or something, I don’t know, so he carried me to bed and sat on the floor. Slept there, apparently.”

He snapped his mouth shut at the sight of Niall’s face. His brows were drawn up high, crystal eyes wide, slack mouth full of half-chewed bread. He rearranged it when Louis whined.

“I mean, I knew you guys had weird sexual tension, but I didn’t know you were into _that_.”

“Into what?”

“Lou?”

It’s like a drug, the way Harry’s voice shoots through his frayed veins, absolutely mad with it. Queenie leapt joyfully from his lap, padding out of the kitchen for Harry--who had always been her favorite--and Louis would’ve been inclined to join her. To seek out the warmth, the touch, the boy. He ached for him, with the unparalleled desperation of his tugging heart. Except Niall is still looking at him like _that_ , like Louis’ a puzzle that he’s so close to solving but he’s falling short.

“In the kitchen, Hazza.” Louis called back, starting anxiously from his seat and crossing the tiles with a nonexistent purpose. Niall stared, bewildered, after him. Louis scrubbed at the spotless countertop with a dry flannel.

Harry’s footsteps still in the doorway.

_Please come hug me_.

It was his hands, first, slipping around Louis’ body, flattening on his stomach. Then the radiating heat of his chest against Louis’ spine. The bump of his nose along the crown of Louis’ head. And they fall together, skin on scalding skin, bodies held together by meager strands of need, splitting apart at the seams. Louis’ hands settled over Harry’s, sliding along his fire-warm forearms, head tipping back to lean against Harry’s jaw. It feels like home. Like complete and utter contentment. He wondered, idly, if he’d spoken aloud, but it only takes half a second longer to realize Harry might’ve wanted to hug him, too.

“How was the gym?”

“It was fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Mmhmm.” Harry stroked his stomach, hand swiping lower each time, until the curled tips of his calloused fingers caught on the hem of his shirt. Fingertips scraped against the taut swell of his stomach, and heat bloomed beneath the trails they left behind.

When Louis glanced over Harry’s shoulder, Niall was gone.

“Hazza?” He murmured, and he wants to say _can we please talk about last night_ , wants to say _I feel like my entire world has been flipped on his axis and I need you to help me explain it_. Wants to say _I don’t understand anything that’s going on but I don’t particularly mind it_. Wants to say _please touch me again_.

“Yes?”

He’s not brave enough for any of that. Not today.

He smiled cheekily and tipped his face up, grinning brightly into Harry’s skeptical face. “Will you make me eggs on toast?”

Harry pinched his side, and Louis pretended it didn’t send fire rushing headily through his veins. “You’re twenty-three, make your own.”

“Please?” He pouted. “Harry?”

Harry rolled his perfect emerald eyes and tugged the eggs out of the fridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is only the first chapter of 16, so please stay tuned and i hope you enjoyed! kudos and comments are greatly appreciated, please leave anything i forgot to list in the kinks list at the top of the chapter in the comments if you caught anything  
> did you know sheep can recognize facial features and prefer smiles? smile for the sheep!  
> thank you !!  
> <333


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi gang, thank you for all the feedback already !!  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: pain kink, hair pulling, dom/sub undertones  
> also in this chapter, cigarette usage and passing mention of panic attacks  
> enjoy !!

“Stop squirming.”

He’s trying, is the thing.

Harry’s hand tightened on Louis’ calf as he shifted uncomfortably for what must’ve been the eighth time, jostling Harry at the end of the couch, head tipping back against the red cushions. An episode of Love Island played tinnily on the telly, to Louis’ chagrin and Harry’s delight, and the smell of pizza cooking in the oven wafted from the open kitchen. Sun slanted horizontally through the slats in the shade. It’s calm, domestic, with Harry’s hot palm wrapped around his leg, thumb stroking the dip of his ankle, but Louis’ restless. Inattentive and ever-moving.

He makes it three minutes without switching positions. Five before the foot planted on the floor starts bouncing. Eight before he’s turning onto his side, subtly as he can, teeth dipping into his wet lower lip.

“Stop moving, Louis.” Harry snapped, harsher this time, turning a warning gaze on Louis’ face.

Louis bristled. “Why are you being such a brat today?”

Harry yanked at his calf until Louis was tugged into his lap, spread awkwardly over his thighs. His hands gripped the side of Louis’ face, tugging him forward so their noses nearly brushed. “You’ve been caught between not speaking to me and picking a fight ever since your birthday.”

Something dark exploded in Louis’ chest, stormy and raw. It took up all the space meant for his breath. He heard himself make a noise that he’d meant to restrain.

“And when you’re not doing that,” Harry went on, hand sliding to grip the fine hairs at the base of Louis’ head. “You’re squirming away from me like a scared animal.” His eyes were darkening with every passing word, voice dipping low in a way that had Louis’ knees weakening, palms slick with sweat where they laid uselessly in his lap. “So you can either tell me what’s wrong, and we can have a normal conversation where you _behave_ like an adult, or I can go back to my flat and leave you here in the shit mood you’ve been sporting for the last three _fucking_ days.”

And he’s not wrong, is the problem. Louis’ attitude has been no less than volatile since the morning after his party, when every passing moment thinking about the dance floor and _Harry_ had terrified him more. He’d avoided Harry’s calls and responded to texts with one word, found his body warring between wanting to be pressed up against Harry’s and wanting to be as far away as physically possible. The memories of his birthday are branded behind his eyelids, flashing with every blink, and it’s sickening to recall the touches, the feelings, when he doesn’t get to have them anymore. If he falls back on anger and acerbity, he can’t be blamed. Not by Harry, who planted it there and took it away in the first place.

When he opens his mouth to say that, to snip out some swimmingly sarcastic comment that would’ve sent smoke pouring out of Harry’s ears, nothing comes up. He can’t talk about it when he doesn’t even know what it is.

“Hazza,” he murmured, resolve cracking as his head dipped down to fall on Harry’s shoulder. “My back hurts.”

Which isn’t an answer. But maybe it’s a start.

Harry’s standing before Louis can even inhale, arms banding beneath his thighs, cheek against the side of Louis’ head. It’s so dizzyingly similar to the way he’d carried Louis to his room on his birthday that Louis almost passes out. He watches the floor pass below them, inhaling the cedarwood and fire scent of Harry’s stupidly expensive cologne. Makes a note to buy him more. 

He has half a mind to ask why Harry’s setting him on his mattress, rolling him over so he’s on his tummy the way he knows Louis likes to sleep, but then he cracks one eye open and sees Harry starting for the door. Like he’s going to leave.

“Wait.” Louis called, far too close to a whine, one hand shooting out as if to catch at his wrist even though he’s already out of reach. Harry stilled with one hand on the doorknob, head turning halfway in some partially-attentive expression. It’s cocky, and Louis hates it, but he also loves it, just a little.

He fancies himself a man of options, at this moment, but there’s really only one.

“Play with my hair?” He says in a small voice.

It’s unintentional, that voice, that sheer sliver of desperation that seeps from his throat, and that’s really what makes this so vexing. So dangerous. He wants to be in control, wants to be _demanding_ Harry do this, give him what he needs. Except he’s _not_ , he’s not in control, and all he really needs is for Harry to take care of him in this moment. It doesn’t matter that Harry can’t say no when Louis asks for anything. It only matters that he’s still scared to, either way.

He closes his eyes so he won’t have to watch if Harry leaves. But he’s rewarded by the soft pad of footsteps across the carpet, the dip of the mattress by his hip, the easy “Okay.” that floods the room and coats Louis’ sparking nerve endings with something like serenity. His hand swept over Louis’ back, too brief, down the line of his spine before it disappeared.

His weight disappears, and Louis goes tense and afraid all over again, even though he knows Harry’s just going to turn off the oven, pizza be damned. He breathes harshly into his pillow, arms tucked into his chest, protected. He probably look stupid, panting and curled, but when he tries to care, it doesn’t work.

Harry returns after eighteen breaths that Louis doesn’t count. The mattress dips, jostling him, and then Harry’s hands slip beneath his shirt, running along the length of his spine, curling momentarily over his shoulders before they slide back down. Louis sagged into the mattress, lips parting. “Can you sit up for me?” Harry murmured, shifting back against the headboard.

Louis does, already too hot, too attached. He situates himself between the V of Harry’s extended legs, steadying with two hands on Harry’s thighs. Pretends not to hear, _feel_ , Harry’s sharp exhale against the back of his neck. He breathes in the sound like he’s drowning.

He goes with the touch when Harry’s hand wraps around his jaw, just light enough to send Louis’ heart pounding furiously. His head tipped back against Harry’s shoulder, moving with the direction Harry pushes him, not even gasping when his hand dips along the path of Louis’ extended throat. The other brushed across the back of his neck, right behind his ear, tracing circles so feather-light that Louis’ skin raises with gooseflesh, painfully exposed to the will of the cold air.

Suddenly, heedlessly, Harry tugged on the fine strands at the base of his neck. Not hard enough to hurt, not really, but enough to jerk his head back, knocking against Harry’s collarbone.

Louis’ cheeks heated. “Fuck,” he gasped, and it’s too close to a whine again. His arms tucked against his chest. He squirms, except he doesn’t know if he’s trying to get closer or move away, it’s so achingly new.

It’s the way Harry slides his fingers into the soft mop of Louis’ hair, nails scraping gently across his scalp, like he hadn’t pulled in the first place, that sends Louis’ mind to pink, and then white. His other hand continues it’s plaguing path across his collarbones, up and down his neck, beneath the thin collar of his shirt but never far enough. His touch is gentle, dizzyingly so, such a whorling juxtaposition to the way he’d yanked on Louis’ locks. It makes his head swim when he wonders what made Harry tug in the first place. If he could do something to make Harry tug again. 

His thumb swept over the top knob of Louis’ spine, just beneath his skull, and, like that, the second tug comes, no harder nor softer than the first. At the same moment, his head dips down to press a kiss to Louis’ shoulder, lips hot even through the fabric of his shirt.

“Jesus.” Louis hissed, inhaling a cold lungful of air as if that might help. He’s hard in his jeans, still squirming, except he’s finally decided he _is_ trying to get away, shifting under Harry’s hands like a cornered animal. His cock presses achingly against his jeans, and that’s _definitely_ too much, so far past pleasurable that it just hurts. Cool air hits his face, and he hides it in Harry’s neck, sinking with the desperation for Harry not to see the way it makes his cheeks blotchy, ugly crimson. He feels like he’s melting.

He can hear the words on the tip of Harry’s tongue. The _pretty_. The _so good for me_. The _baby_.

The problem is that it all existed before Louis’ birthday. This blurry line between friends and more, this secret attraction that isn’t particularly a secret. The _pretty_ s and the _mine_ s and the _baby_ s have existed since the first week of freshman year, because it’s never been a matter of _if_ , not with them. It used to make Louis hot in his jeans. But now it comes second to everything that is _this_ , the way Harry hurts him and how his first reaction is _keep going_.

His attention swings to his shirt, hot and constricting and twisted around his body, when Harry tugs at the hem. “Do you want it off?” Harry says, and Louis might tease him about being a gentleman if he didn’t know that the only reason it was phrased as a question was because Harry already knew the answer. But he lets Harry work it up his back, scrunched up under his arms, and arcs so Harry can tug it over his head before he lists back into his hold. “No, no,” Harry murmured gently. “Lean forward.”

Louis does, sucking in a deep breath, and his head tips back against nothing when Harry’s hand sinks into his hair, the other tracing his spine. Louis’ mind jumps and sparks back and forth with it, the feel of hands in his hair, of hands on his body, warring between the two.

“Harry,” he gasped as Harry’s fingers twined around his locks and pulled, no softer than before. “Harry, that hurts.”

Harry dug a fingernail into the base of his spine, small and sharp, like a needle. “Do you want me to stop?

And because Louis still has confused frustration bubbling in his chest, he snaps, “Fuck you.”

Harry stills. His palms leave Louis’ body entirely. Cold marks the places they’d been, empty without Harry’s touch, harsh as an ocean storm and twice as terrifying. It’s so much worse. To be so close to Harry’s hands without having them on him. Something raw and sharp explodes in his chest, churning madly.

“It’s gonna hurt a little.” Harry said finally, voice far closer to Louis’ ear than he’d expected. Louis wanted to fall back against his chest, to sink into his body, to crack open his own rib cage in a shape that cradles Harry’s. The duvet brushes softly beneath his fingertips before they bunch into it. “But you’ll feel better after. I’m going to take care of you.” A fingertip, tracing the inevitable line of Louis’ spine, hot and sparking. “Are you gonna let me take care of you?”

He wanted Harry to take care of him.

“Okay.” Louis nodded shortly, desperately, eyes squeezing shut, heart hammering against his sternum like a gavel. He tipped back into Harry’s body like he’d been starved of it. “Yes.”

Harry hummed before his touch returned, one to his hair and one to his back, as if contemplating whether or not he thought Louis was being honest. Louis kept his hands lax in his lap, pliant beneath Harry’s shifting palms. The one on his back splayed open, fierce, wide, dizzying with intensity, as the other tugged lightly on his hair, right at the crown of his head. It does feel nice, in a _too sharp_ sort of way. Louis watched colors dance behind his closed eyelids, starbursts of cerise and lemon, of bright azure. He couldn’t breathe around the feeling.

He could feel the warm bump of Harry’s crucifix against the back of his neck, metal and big. Louis wanted to put it on. His rings, too. All of his jewelry. Wanted to strip Harry’s fingers and dress up his own. He’s still hard and throbbing in his jeans, much less naked than he feels. He feels fucking bare. But then he’s thinking about Harry’s hands, stripped of jewelry, scraping over his exposed skin. About the cocky, dark voice he uses, how he’d whisper in Louis’ ear how much he wants to take care of him. About different situations that would look so similar; Louis sitting naked in his lap, with Harry’s hands hot on his skin, gritting his teeth with every shift of fabric against his hard cock. Harry would be three fingers deep in his arse before letting Louis adjust to one, so confident that he knew Louis’ body, that he liked the pain, and he’d be right either way. Relentless about it, too, stroking Louis’ prostate furiously, until it hurts, but he wouldn’t stop until Louis told him to. And Louis wouldn’t have. Doesn’t now. Not when the heel of Harry’s hand grinds into a tense muscle of his spine. Not when his fingers scrape sweetly against his scalp before he tugs again.

The pressure lightens long enough for Louis to suck in a sharp breath. Then it returns in full force.

If Harry wanted to take his virginity right now, Louis would let him. Would’ve let him in the rickety beds of their freshman dorm. Any time after that.

Harry’s fingertips brush over his shoulder blade. “You have a bruise here.” He whispered. His voice is different, thick with a smirk.

“I know.” Louis said, half-smiling.

Harry tugged on a strand of his hair; the one that curled, just a bit, behind Louis’ ear, that they both know is his favorite, playful this time. “Good god, you’re so cheeky.” He snarked, and before Louis could snap back, or inhale, both of his hands were spread wide over Louis’ back, drawing an ugly sort of noise from his throat. His hand fisted in the bedsheets. Tears spark in the corners of his eyes, and he can’t blink them away no matter how much he tries. It’s like his chest is cracking open and swallowing him whole.

Then Harry’s fingertips are dancing feather-light over the bruise, and something about it zings with gravity, dizzying and orphic.

“Where did you get this?” Harry murmured, too soft, too dangerous.

“Bumped into a door frame.” Louis whispered.

If there’s a moment where everything changes, it’s this:

Harry’s fingers pressed down.

It feels like fire, the pain that manifests through Louis’ body, through his bones. He whined, gasping, and Harry just murmured, “Massaging it out.” like that was enough of an explanation. Louis could picture it, see it behind his eyes; Harry’s golden, veined hands against his bluish-yellow skin, digging in until a flush of crimson accompanies them. Harry’s knees twitched on either side of Louis’ thighs.

“Fucking hell, Haz.” Louis wheezed, teeth scraping against the heels of his hands until he just bites down on them. His cock wet his pants.

“Doing good, baby,” Harry murmured gently, encouragingly. His muscles protest like fire, radiating through his whole skeleton, pulsing in heavy waves of blanketing pain. It’s not a sharp hurt, but that makes it worse, somehow. It’s just ache, simple and severe, right down to the marrow of his bones. All too sudden, Harry works it harder, harder, harder, hands circling firm and hard against the bruise, and the ache is so acerbic that Louis crackles with a sob, tears brewing behind his scrunched eyelids. He’s nauseatingly sure that he can’t take it anymore, except he still _is_. Something builds at the base of his spine, dangerously similar to an orgasm but so much _more_ , like a thousand rubber bands pulled taut before they snapped “‘S all good, doll.” Harry promises, voice so reassuring that Louis wants to bury his face in his pillow and cry until dawn breaks. He feels good, like he’s been good for Harry. Pleased him. Harry breaths out words like a mantra, heady and soft, and Louis can’t breathe around them, around anything, can’t breathe at all, and he’s whispering _please_ but there’s no _stop_ after it. There hasn’t been since this began. “‘Does it hurt?”

Louis hesitates before nodding, breathing in the worn-soft air before his mouth. “A lot.”

If anything, it feels like Harry’s fingertips spark with interest. And then he lets up, hands sweeping smoothly up and down Louis’ spine, calming and soft. The lingering ache is almost nice. He’s sickeningly aware of how close he was to coming; another minute, maybe two, and Harry would have sent him shattering without ever taking his trousers off. He still can’t breathe properly, eyelashes clumped with tears, but now it’s a nice breathlessness, a pliable lack of mind. It feels too much like the aftermath of an orgasm, with his mind so dizzy and his hands so numb.

“Good job.” Harry murmured, laying Louis down on the mattress and sprawling out beside him. Louis huddled close, head on his shoulder, thigh thrown over his legs.

“Need a cig.”

“Filthy habit.” Harry sighed, but he’s still reaching across Louis’ body to tug open the bedside drawer and grab at the open pack. He lights it and then hitches Louis’ leg up over his waist, tugging them impossibly closer as he holds the fag to Louis’ lips. Louis took it from his hand, fingers brushing the smooth skin of Harry’s knuckles. It does nothing to restore a casual breathing pattern. Or lessen the weight of his hard cock between his legs.

Harry took the last drag when Louis was done, so Louis poked him in the cheek until he blew it out. “Filthy habit.” He mocked.

Harry took a handful of his arse and squeezed until Louis yelped, giggling. “I do what I want.”

“You’re whipped for me.”

A raised brow that made Louis’ whole body warm. “Do you really want to go there?”

Not really. He has the nauseating feeling that he knows what Harry’s going to bring up, and he doesn’t really think it’s the sort of thing he can joke about. Not yet.

When Louis shuts his eyes, he feels like he’s floating again. It’s similar to what happened on his birthday, when he was lost to the press of Harry’s cock on his arse and the swelling sound of the music, but it’s different, too. The dance floor was like something pulling him out of his body and tossing him into the clouds, entirely noncorporeal and out of his own hands. But _this_ , this is like stepping out of his skin and hovering above it, entirely within reach, buzzing along with the flow of the universe. Like a high. He tucked his face into the warm curve of Harry’s neck, inhaling slowly, reveling in the tandem sounds of their breaths. The room smells like Harry’s cologne and cigarette smoke and the pillows smell like Louis’ shampoo, and it all blends so beautiful and exact that Louis’ almost sick with it. Almost.

“It’s okay.” Harry says, even though neither of them have spoken.

Except Louis knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“I’m crazy.” Louis breathed, eyes fluttering closed. He doesn’t want Harry to dispute him, so Harry doesn’t, and that’s the end of that. But then comes, “I’m sorry I’ve been so shitty to you.” Because he is. He hated not talking, dodging calls, sending bitchy texts. Trying to pick fights. Harry was a fixture of his soul, and warring with him was like warring with pieces of himself.

If Harry’s thumb weren’t stroking the skin of his shoulder, repetitive and gentle, Louis’d think he was asleep. He tips his head back, searching for Harry’s gaze with red-rimmed cerulean eyes, except that’s a mistake, because Harry’s already staring down at him, and he’s paralyzed under his stare. Limp to his will.

“Missed you.” Harry muttered, voice plain and soft. Louis’ chest hiccuped involuntarily. “Don’t do that again.”

Louis shifted, marveling at the dull ache of his shoulder. He feels all worn-soft and feathery. Sweet, melty. “I won’t.” He promised. He couldn’t if he tried, really. It had splintered his heart.

“Holding you to that.” Harry said, eyes sliding shut. And then he really is asleep, because he always falls asleep in half a second and leaves Louis awake, staring at the ceiling, counting the number of times his waking breaths sync up with Harry’s sleep-slow ones. He thinks about when they used to climb into each other’s bunks in university, curled together, brows touching as they whispered old dreams and embarrassing secrets and sad fears. Harry would name all the glow-in-the-dark stars Louis had pasted on the ceiling, the same ones that reside in his living room now, but he’d never make fun of him for being scared of the dark. He remembers a breathless _I like boys_ , a quiet _me too_ , an abashed _I’m a virgin_ , a dulcet _there’s nothing wrong with that_. He remembers Harry having a girlfriend, Carrie or Cathy or something of the sort, and how he kicked her out of the dorm at midnight because she made fun of Louis during a panic attack about his Soc test. How he’d broken up with her the next day, remorseless and firm. _You come before her, Lou_ , he’d said. _Always and forever_.

Louis knows three things, at the base of it all.

He likes when Harry hurts him. He doesn’t know why, not really, but he knows that he likes it. Likes giving up control, likes feeling small and taken care of, likes being praised for taking whatever Harry gives him for as long as he gives it.

He and Harry are meant to be. No matter what time they finally fall together, what day, what age, what place, the moment that they do, that’ll be it. It’s going to be them against everyone else, hand in hand for the rest of their lives. That’s been a given since they met. The half of Louis’ soul that’s missing is Harry’s.

And, sans those two things, he doesn’t really know much of anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed !! please leave kudos and comments with feedback !!  
> thank you loves  
> sea otters have a pouch under their forearms to hold their favorite rocks  
> <333


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bitches really promise a posting schedule on tuesdays and saturdays and then miss the second week  
> im bitches  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: discussion of pain kink, discussion and explanation of safewords, discussion of BDSM

He should’ve guessed Zayn would pick up on a change in dynamic. He always was the most observant of the five of them.

“So, are we going to talk about whatever’s going on with you and Harry?” He asks, when they’re lying, high, on Louis’ bedroom floor at four in the afternoon. He blew smoke towards the ceiling and lolled his head to one side.

Louis stole the spliff from his hand and inhaled deeply to disguise the quiver in his hands. “Are we going to talk about how you and Liam are dating?”

“We can, if you want to.” Zayn says calmly, because of course he fucks up Louis’ plan to stun him into silence. “If you agree to talk about you and Harry afterwards.”

“There’s nothing to talk about with me and Harry.”

“Then there’s nothing to talk about with me and Liam.”

Louis sat up and glared. “You’re wicked.” He snapped, and then, after a dizzyingly long moment of contemplation, “Fine. When did you and Liam start dating?”

Zayn tapped ash onto the carpet, as he always did. Louis smacked his olive hand. “About a month ago. He kissed me while we were watching Marvel movies.”

“How long have you actually liked him?”

“Since I met him.”

“Why did you lie when I asked, then?”

“I didn’t think he felt the same and I didn’t want you to spill.”

“Is he good in bed?”

“Extremely.”

“Nice. Why are you keeping it from everyone?”

“We’re not really, it’s not a secret, we’re just not loudly addressing it until things have settled into a bit more of a groove.”

“Okay. Like, _how_ good in bed is he?”

“Ten out of ten.”

“Is his dick actually ten inches long?”

“I haven’t measured yet.”

“Does it _feel_ ten inches long?”

“Remember that day I couldn’t come over to play Fifa?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s because I couldn’t walk.”

“Damn.” Louis leaned back on his hands, eyebrows raising as he searched for more questions and found none. Zayn had stayed true to his end of the bargain, hadn’t skirted around any of Louis’ questions like Louis was certain to. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks mate.” Zayn’s amber eyes bore into his face, painfully scrutinizing. Louis couldn’t meet them. “Are you going to make me ask questions or are you just going to tell me?”

He played with his fingers in his lap. “Well, I’m not just gonna tell you.” He admitted blandly, taking a very long drag of the spliff and then stubbing it out in the ashtray.

Zayn sighed and sat up, lanky legs crossed beneath him. “Do you know how much longer it’s going to take if I have to ask you questions and guess what’s going on as opposed to you just telling me?” He cocked a brow when Louis stayed silent. “Because, genuinely, we’ll be here for hours, which means it’ll be longer before we can play Fifa.”

Every single one of Louis’ weaknesses, Zayn exploits.

“Ugh,” Louis tipped his head back onto his mattress, staring at the circles of water damage on the ceiling instead of the inquisitive expression of his best friend. “Do you remember at my birthday, when I went to dance with Harry?”

Zayn’s answer was instantaneous. “Yes.”

“Well,” he blew hot air out between his teeth, feeling his cheeks heat up at the words caught in the back of his throat. “We were dancing, and we… sort of both got really turned on? Like, I was grinding on him, but he was super hard, and so was I.” The story lodged harshly in his mouth. Jabbed at the back of his teeth. “He was holding onto my hips really, really tightly. So that it hurt. But--it was nice. Not nice. I don’t know. I liked it, I guess. And it’s me and Harry, I trust him _so_ much, so maybe that’s why… it’s okay to be like that with him.”

Zayn blinked. “Okay.” His lips pursed, pink and bitten. “I feel like there’s more to this story.”

“There is.” Louis tugged at a loose string in his jeans like an instrument. “He had this voice, different from his normal one, and it just--I just wanted to do whatever he told me to. Anything, probably. It almost felt like I was floating in a pool and he was just tugging me along, deciding how I moved. But then he took me off the dance floor and the voice was gone and I felt really panicked. He kept, like, apologizing? I think? But I couldn’t calm down until he told me to in his, I don’t know, his _sex_ voice, I guess. And then I was just exhausted. So, he brought me to bed, and he told me I didn’t have to think about what happened anymore. It almost… it was like he was ashamed that it had happened. I was freaking out about it in the days after, and I kept avoiding him and was pretty bratty, I guess. But then we were hanging out and he sort of confronted me, but I couldn’t tell him, obviously, so he… he…”

“He?” Zayn prodded, encouragingly, nonjudgementally. Louis fucking loves him for it.

“Well, I told him to play with my hair, so he did. Except it wasn’t… normal. He sort of pulled my hair. And pressed down on this bruise on my back. Really hard. And it hurt really bad, but… I liked it. Again. I almost came in my fucking pants like a teenager.” He blushed splotchy red and dipped his head so far that his chin bumped his chest. “We had a pretty vague conversation afterwards and I promised never to ignore him, so it’s all fine now.” He paused, and finally, finally looked up. Zayn’s face was unchanged, open. Neutral. Louis let out a sharp breath. “I think I like when he hurts me, Zayn.”

Zayn was silent for an epoch that made Louis’ head swim inside his skull. His amber eyes were narrowed, studying Louis’ face, lower lip pulled thoughtfully between his teeth. His chin rested on his fist, elbow perched on his knee.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, but I didn’t know you had a pain kink.” He said finally. Conversationally.

Louis deflated again. “Neither did I.” He admitted, raking a sweat-damp hand through his unruly hair. Every nerve ending that had fired with anxiety was weakening with each passing moment. “The thing is that I can’t imagine doing that with anyone but Harry, though.” A pause. “You can ask me about it if you’re confused.”

Zayn nodded. “I am, a bit.” He admitted, and Louis’ lungs went blue, and then green. “Don’t freak out, this is a judgement free zone.” He went on, catching the look on Louis’ face. Louis chewed on his thumbnail. “Do you think you want to be hurt or do you think you want Harry to do anything he wants with you?”

His cheeks burned so red they were nearly magenta. “A bit of both, I guess. I don’t mind when it hurts. I think that it’s about _Harry_ giving me the pain. I think I like taking whatever Harry wants to give me, whenever he wants to give me it. I just… I like giving up my control.”

“Isn’t that scary, though?”

He thought about it. About Harry’s thumbs digging into the bruise on his back, the searing pain that had radiated, but the way he’d murmured _doing good, baby. Good job_. He thought about Harry’s nails digging into his collarbone, fingertips dragging against his jaw. He thought about the way he’d imagined Harry being three fingers inside of him without letting him adjust to one but it being _okay_ because he trusted Harry to know his body. And Louis knew he’d stop with one word.

“No,” he decided, eyes far off and foggy. “I trust him implicitly. He’d never take advantage of what I want to give him, even if it’s every part of me. I know I’d be handled with care even when… well, even when I’m begging him to _not_ handle me with care. And if I so much as said one word that inclined I wasn’t okay, it’s a full stop. I know it.”

Zayn stared at him, dark head cocked to one side. Louis ran his fingers across the fluffy carpet. “I’ve never trusted anyone like that."

“I mean, it’s Harry,” Louis shrugged, as if that were an explanation. “He’s my soulmate, we all know that. I’ve always, like, known that we belong together. That was never a question. The only thing that really matters is about the time, you know, when the timing is right. But I trust him more than anyone in the world.”

Zayn nodded. “Do you think you like showing him that you trust him?”

Louis shrugged again, feeling his whole body heat. “I think it’s a little bit of everything, you know? I want him to know that I trust him, sure, but also, like, I just want him inside me for hours.”

Zayn’s brows shot up into his hairline.

And then they’re both just laughing, half at the statement and half at the sheer absurdity of the conversation, a discussion Louis would never have envisioned himself having. It feels good, to laugh about it, like a cathartic release of tension. It feels like it’s not this colossal thing that Louis’ fruitlessly been trying to hide, something he has to be ashamed of, something taboo. Zayn slapped his knee, and Louis snorted, and then they’re laughing about _that_ , too, because once they start, they can’t really stop.

“Can we play Fifa now?” Louis sighed finally, head pillowed on Zayn’s stomach. Laughter lingered giddily in his chest, bouncing against his edges.

“Sure, but we’ve gotta talk about one more thing first.” Zayn murmured, patting Louis’ spiky hair with a thin hand.

Louis dug his toes into the plush carpet, teeth driving into his lip. He knew the rug would be a good investment, no matter how many times Harry told him it was too expensive. He’s half in love with it. It, among other things. “Okay?”

“You know that if anything serious starts to happen with Harry, you need to find a safeword, right?”

Confusion shot through Louis’ veins alongside his pounding blood. “What’s a safeword?”

“It’s like,” Zayn’s stomach swelled when he sighed, shifting Louis’ head with it. Louis picked idly at a loose strand in Zayn’s white tee, hands ever-moving, mind working into overdrive. “It’s a word you use during sex that means everything needs to stop. Like apricot. Or…” his hands waved. “Dragon slippers. Something you wouldn’t use during everyday life.”

Louis restrained the urge to cover his blush with his palms. “I use apricot in everyday life.” He murmured.

Either Zayn didn’t recognize his effort to change the subject, or he didn’t care. “No, you don’t. You need to find a safeword that you and Harry can both agree on and easily remember so that neither of you gets hurt.”

He turned his head to look at Zayn’s face, tan brows drawing together over his azure eyes. “When you say everything needs to stop… what do you mean?”

“It means everything stops, Lou.” Zayn said, eyes wide in disbelief. “All play needs to cease. It’s like… like a trigger. Harry needs to untie you, or whatever, and back away, and the same goes for you if he uses it. Stuff like this can be emotionally taxing for both parties, you know? Safewords are necessary in BDSM relationships.”

Louis shot up in alarm, spinning accusingly on Zayn’s unsuspecting face. “Harry and I aren’t in a BDSM relationship.” He rushed out, cheeks flooding blotchy red. “We’re not in any relationship, even.”

Zayn stared at him for a long time, brows twitching in skepticism. Louis’ heart beat somewhere low in his stomach. He and Harry weren’t in a BDSM relationship. It’s--all of that sounds so intense. Dangerous. It makes Louis’ brain bleed out from his ears.

“Do you know what the SM stands for in BDSM?” Zayn asked finally, voice soft as feathers. It floated through the air between them, all nonjudgemental and relaxed, but Louis’ fingertips still pricked with anxiety.

“Sadism and Masochism.” He answered, because he wasn’t completely incompetent, except he’d just closed himself in a corner of his argument. “I know I have a pain kink, so shut up, before you start.” He muttered, head dropping defeatedly into his clammy palms.

A sigh colored the room, bluish-gray and quiet. “I’m not trying to attack you, babes. I’m not anyone to put labels on your relationships, okay, so don’t have a strop about it.”

“‘M not having a strop.” Louis moaned in an admittedly stroppy tone. “Why aren’t we playing Fifa?” He sighed, staring out the window. Rays of late-afternoon trundled lethargically over the roofs of the city, slanting golden-like and buttery across the sidewalks. Overhead, a bird circled, drawing closer with each round. Vulture-like. Louis wondered, idly, if the bird had an unknown enthusiasm for BDSM, too. Maybe. Probably not. One could never know for sure, though. Perhaps, Louis and this bird were acquaintances in pieces of life. He watched as it flew off, dipping elegantly through the darkening sky.

Zayn tapped at the toe of Louis’ shoe. “What are you thinking about?”

“Whether or not the bird that was outside the window and I are the same personality in different species.” He answered honestly, leaning back on his hands, because that’s what Louis did. His mind worked too awkwardly, too unusually, for anyone else to possibly comprehend. Even Zayn. Even Harry. “Do you think he gets turned on when his best friend pulls his hair?”

Zayn’s head tipped, bumping softly against Louis’, kind and quiet. “Probably not.”

Louis’ eyes hadn’t shifted from the sky outside the window. The sun had disappeared behind a drifting cloud, and in it’s absence, nothing was as lovely. As lazy. Harry reminded him of the sun, who took the beauty with him when he left.

“That’s what I figured, too.” He murmured finally, palms scraping along his jean-clad thighs. 

“Please don’t worry about it.” Zayn murmured. His blinked his long, dark eyelashes pleadingly, and all of Louis’ resolve went catatonic. Flipped on it’s belly. “I just want you to be totally safe.”

“There’s nothing to be safe from.” Louis argued weakly, fingers tangling and untangling restlessly in his lap.

Zayn cast him _that_ look, that look that saw right through Louis, to his walled soul. Louis squirmed beneath it, cheeks warming. “Not yet.”

Louis flopped back on the carpet. “I shouldn’t have ever told you.” He groaned, not gracing a smile when Zayn laughed. He kicked out blindly until his foot made contact with the hard bone of Zayn’s shin. “I should’ve made you keep talking about Liam.”

“I could talk about Liam for ages, if that’s what you want.” Zayn admitted, and when Louis lifted his head to look at him, his dark cheeks had gone pink.

“Do you love him?” He asks, and he’s not really sure where it comes from. Harry’s face flashes behind his eyes, grinning, eyes all sparkly, effervesence in a human.

Zayn shifted, gnawing on his lower lip, eyes falling to the carpet. “I don’t know.” He said, small, which actually meant _yes but I can’t say so because it’s too soon_.

Louis leaned forward a little, heart thudding. His mouth opened, and then closed. Opened again. “What’s it like?”

He wondered, idly, what it would be like to be in love. Really in love.

“It’s sort of, like, scary,” Zayn began, slow and bashful. “I don’t know, I can’t explain it. It just feels like love, I guess.” He chuckled. “You should ask Liam. He’s the sappy one.”

“Zayn Javadd Malik,” Louis began, deadpan and disbelieving. “If you think I don’t know how fucking sappy you are, you’re daft.”

“Alright, alright,” Zayn chuffed, laughing again, reaching out to smack at Louis’ thigh. Louis smacked him back, grinning a little.

By the time they’re actually playing Fifa, sprawled across the couch and eating crisps out of a crumpled bag, yelling obscenities at the screen each time they inevitably miss a goal, the conversation has almost left Louis’ spinning mind. Almost. Except there’s something unwinding in his stomach, altogether too soft-edged and sickly, creeping up through his used lungs like morning glories in the springtime. It winds around his heart, teetering on the edge of dangerous. Of obsessive. Want prickles at his fingertips, his palms, makes itself heavy beneath his bitten fingernails. When he tires to convince himself it’s not there, he finds he rather likes it. It’s dizzying. He wants it to keep going.

He calls Harry that night. Falls asleep on the phone, to the steadying lull of Harry’s slow speech, his weighted breaths. Neither of them pretend like it’s the first time.

Both of them know it won’t be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiii i hope you enjoyed! please leave kudos and comments bc i love to hear from you !!  
> turtles can smell out of their butts  
> <333


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiiiii  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: none  
> please enjoy !!

Louis likes to fancy himself a pretty reasonable man. Save the odd bout of reckless insanity, and the fleeting urge to steal things that don’t belong to him, he’s not altogether so wild. Not nearly as wild as he pretends to be. He goes to sleep at midnight most days, wakes up at nine. Calls his mom as often as possible to check in. Makes fun of his sisters and his friends. He eats takeout too much for a recent uni graduate with a minimum wage job, and he spoils himself with expensive hair products, but if he ignores those things, he’s a decently rational human being.

Until Harry Styles is shirtless in his bed.

He wakes to hair in his mouth, overwarm limbs thrown lankily, heavily, over his lazing body. Harry’s head pillowed on his shoulder, face tucked into his neck. His fingers tapped delicate patterns on Louis’ hipbone. Sun streamed diagonally through the slats in the window shade.

“Is there a reason you’re in my bed?” Louis rasped, not nearly as opposed as he should be.

Harry’s tongue darted out to lick his jaw, and Louis squealed, slapping his arm. “We’re going to the beach today.”

“And that’s a reason to…” he glanced down to where Harry’s calf wound around his thigh. “Be in my bed?”

Harry feels like the sun. Like summery days, flowery breezes. Grass in an emerald meadow.

He huddled closer, unbothered by the sweltering heat radiating between them beneath the blanket. “Yes. You looked cuddly.” A giggle. “You were holding onto your duvet like you wanted something in your arms.” His head tipped up, and Louis smiled down at him, chest bubbling in champagne-light giddiness. “Here I am.”

And Louis, just. He could lose himself in this if he tried. Even if he didn’t. This flood of dulcet warmth, the insurmountable affection that came with Harry’s body on his body. He could utterly drown in it.

He stretched, nose turning into Harry’s curls. They smelled like strawberry shampoo. “What time is it?”

“Nine thirty.”

“How long have you been here?”

A hum and a discombobulated shrug. “Four hours?”

Louis started, hand tightening on Harry’s shoulder in surprise. “Jesus, why were you awake at five in the morning?” He murmured, face burrowing in Harry’s hair, away from the streams of sun, who grow bolder and wider with every passing heartbeat.

Harry’s knee pressed into his ribs. “I was excited for our beach day.” His lips moved languidly against Louis’ jugular when he spoke, so slow and rhythmic. “I wanna ride a shark.”

“Alright, Dangerous Dave.” Louis laughed, shifting against the lax weight of Harry slumped across his body. “Make me some tea and I’ll take you to the beach.”

Harry’s launched off the mattress and out of the room in mere moments, the echo of laughter trailing behind him. It leaves Louis on the edge of cold, the precipice of empty-handed. But, then, that’s the principle of a thing, to miss it only when it’s gone, because you can’t know what it is to live without when it’s still there. Maybe he’s getting too philosophical for nine thirty. Maybe that’s what Harry does to him. Casts him to another landscape of thought, like a rock breaking the surface of a pond. Harry’s a drug. All dizzying and addictive. He leaves an imprint in the sheets, rumpled, and it smells like his skin.

Louis keeps from burying his nose in it, but just barely.

When he finally manages to meander sleepily into the kitchen, his breath is knocked away before his other foot is over the threshold. Harry’s standing at the stove, back to him, dipping a tea bag into a steaming mug of water. The sun paints him in pale swaths of gold and dandelion, dipping along every muscle and bone, coloring his dark tattoos amber. His trackies hung low on his hips, exposing the band of his pants, the dimples of his spine. His feet stood bare on the tile. The mop of hickory-colored curls frames his head wildly, sweeping ends dipped amber in the sunlight. Effortlessly beautiful. Louis wants to slip his arms around his waist, flatten his hands on his toned stomach, tickle his hips where the doughish softness has been replaced by sharpened edges, muscled lines. Bury his hands in that halo of hair until the texture of it, the pattern, is a second language to his fingertips.

Harry turns, grinning. And Louis’ wearing an oversized sleep shirt and briefs, scratching idly at his bare thigh, spiking hair a mess on his head and glasses sat askew abridge his nose, and Harry’s still looking at him like he forged the sun. So. That feels nice. It’s like he could go catatonic from it.

Harry holds out the tea proudly, smile broad and cheesy. “I made it in your favorite mug.”

Louis wants to laugh. He also wants to drop to his knees.

Instead, he just murmured “Thank you.” through dry, smiling lips, listing onto his toes to press his mouth to Harry’s sleep-warm cheek. A hand grips at his hip, scalding and steady, and Louis lets his fingertips dance, feather-light, over the back of it. Then he sits down.

Louis kicked Niall’s plastic shovel away from his foot and burrowed his toes in the hot sand. His torso is shaded by the umbrella Zayn is lounging beneath, but his legs are extended in the sunshine, dusted with fine grains of sand from where Niall pushes it around, tongue between his teeth as he builds up a sandcastle. Liam and Harry are waist deep in the surf, laughing. One of Harry’s hands raised to shield his eyes, gaze trained on the blue horizon. Louis manifested the feel of his wet shoulder beneath his fingertips. If it would be cold from the water or warm from the sun.

“You’re staring.”

He swiveled his unimpressed gaze to Zayn, sprawled out across his towel on the sand. His eyes were closed, arm pillowed beneath his head, tattoos displayed to the crystalline day.

“How would you know?” Louis asked, not unkindly, reaching over to poke Zayn’s cheekbone, just below his shut eyelid.

“Everyone knows.” Niall butted from across a makeshift moat. He scooped a handful of sandy mud from a bucket and plopped it atop Louis’ knee.

Which, by all known standards, is an act of war.

They spend the next half hour flinging sand at each other, giggling every time Zayn squeals as he’s hit. Louis successfully demolishes Niall’s half-built castle, but trips in the moat, to the delight of Niall and the chagrin of his now-sand-coated mouth. It only really makes him more determined to win. The only real reason they stop is because Zayn actually _does_ get angry, sputtering around a faceful of ocean water from a horribly-aimed attempt to soak Louis. Since Niall was behind the attack, Louis names himself the winner. As it should be.

When he finally sits down again, he’s almost forgotten what started the battle in the first place. Except now Harry’s bobbing beside Liam, shoulders poking out above the shifting waves, a smile splitting his suntanned cheeks. His wet hair hangs in his face. Louis wants to climb him. Fucking devour him, and be devoured in return, ten times harder.

Niall dumps water over his head. “Sorry,” he called over his shoulder, sprinting maniacally to the surf, as if that could possibly save him. “You looked a little thirsty!”

Zayn, who was caught in the splash zone, wipes at his eyes and glares up at Louis. “Fucking kill him.”

He does as told. Niall screams when he tackles him into a wave, cut short by the engulfing water, and sputters sloppily when he resurfaces. Louis dunks him again. Harry, alerted by the noises, is steadily making his way over, water parting around him angelically, still grinning. Zayn’s laughter is clear even from the sand.

“If you’ve come to help him and not me, Styles,” Louis starts when Harry is in earshot, pinning Niall’s hands to his sides as he comes up for air. “I will never speak to you again.”

He looks like a god, ink dark on his golden skin, hair pasted to his brow, emerald eyes overflowing with glittering mirth. Seawater pooled in the hollow of his collarbones, slicking his chain, wet and distracting. Sunlight bounces off the constellation of droplets across his skin, and Louis’ more than a bit surprised that he isn’t glowing. His fingertips trailed along the surface of the waves as he laughed. “Just making sure he deserves it.”

“He does.” Louis assured.

“Louis has a problem with his eyes!” Niall piped in quickly, which earned him a sharp twist of the nipple and another dunk. He slapped blindly at Louis’ chest, hand landing wetly on his sternum, sharp and sudden. He weasels out of Louis’ arms at last, slicing through the water as he darts away, clambering onto Liam’s back. “Maybe it’s all the eye-rolling!” He calls from the safety.

Harry pokes him beneath the ribs before he can contemplate ambushing Niall for a third time. “You have a problem with your eyes?” He teases. His mouth is drawn up into that stupid smirk that Louis wants to slap away.

He does. Lightly. Harry grips at his wrist, smile widening. “Niall is a wanker.” Louis grumbled, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. Harry tugged at a strand he missed, easy and teasing, and Louis tangles his fingers in his swinging necklace, palm cradling the crucifix. He let the edges dig into his skin.

Harry tips forward a little, and Louis blames it on the waves against his spine. “Are you having fun?”

His thumb ran along the ridged chain. “Of course I am.”

Harry’s doing this thing with his eyelashes. Fluttering them, almost, except far slower, sweeping against his cheekbones until Louis is an inch from convincing himself he can feel the breeze that fans off them. Must just be the water.

“Good.” He murmured, head tipping to one side. It would be painfully easy to slant their mouths together at this angle.

“There’s all these shops on the pier.” Louis breathed. “If you wanted to go shopping later. I think I saw a stand that sells candles.”

“Ooh,” Harry purred, grinning. His candle obsession was infamous. “Louis Tomlinson, you do know how to get a man going.”

His nose scrunched in disgust, but it was actually to restrain a smile, even if they both knew Harry would see it either way. “You’re revolting, and I hate you.”

“Aww,” Harry whined. He hooked his elbows beneath Louis’ knees, lifting him easily beneath the water. Louis clung to him, arms slung around his ocean-wet shoulders, sifting through the cool droplets. Their chests pressed together. At the juncture of Harry’s neck and shoulder, a lone drop danced and trailed along his skin, and Louis’ tongue sparked with the temptation to lick at it, to suck it into his mouth alongside Harry’s sun-hot skin, to taste. Just enough.

“I don’t think that’s very true.” He went on when they were chest-high in the water. Louis unhooked the necklace from his neck and clasped it around his own. He liked the cold weight beneath his collarbones. Harry did too, if the spark in his eyes was anything to go by.

“It is.” Louis attested seriously, tracing the edges of the crucifix with his index finger. “I’ve been waiting for a day to finally reveal myself and steal your life savings, making off like a bandit into the sunset. Today is that day.”

“How would you steal my life savings?”

“I know your bank code.”

“No, you don’t.”

But Louis just shrugged. “I’m a phenomenal guesser.”

Harry laughed, loud and bright and lovely. Louis thumbed at his Adam’s apple when his head tipped back, curling tips of his hair dipping in the water. So pretty.

“I would love to go shopping with you, by the way,” Harry added, gazing into Louis’ face, eyes glimmering. Louis’ thighs tightened around his waist, sick with desire to keep him close. Closer. Even when Harry cupped water in his palms and drizzled it over his collarbones, cold and slow. Maybe more, then. His toes curled against the small of Harry’s back. “As long as you’re trying on clothes for me.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

A nod. “You know that I would.” He murmured, voice pitching lower, rumbling dangerously between their chests. Louis wanted to bottle the sound. The cadence of it, scraping across his skin, sure and heavy as a boulder, twice as rough. Heat stirred his stomach up, and he suffocated it frenetically. “I hope you need yoga pants.” Harry added slyly.

Louis rolled his eyes until they began to hurt. “I have enough, actually.”

“You can never be too safe.”

“You buy me a new pair every time you go shopping.”

Harry palmed his arse, smirking, until Louis slapped his hands away. “Wonder why.” He mused, tapping his chin. Louis smacked his hand again, and Harry’s fingers tangled around his wrist, smirk widening. “Don’t be nasty, darling.”

Louis twisted his wrist until his hand tugged free. “It’s my default setting.” He teased, shuddering when Harry dripped water over the pinkening slope of his shoulders.

“You should’ve put on sunscreen.” Harry murmured.

He thumbed the line of Harry’s sunburned nose. “I’m not the only one.” He whispered. His voice sifted away among the slosh of waves around them, but Harry still heard.

“Are you going to make me put aloe on you later?” Harry cocked a dark brow.

“Are you going to pretend like you don’t love doing it?”

Which. Is unfair. But, hey, when has Louis ever played fair, really? When has Harry?

Harry went silent, gazing up through his sweeping ebony lashes, red lips faintly restraining a curling grin. His wet hands slipped up and down Louis’ spine beneath the water. “You did not win this conversation.” He adds, after minutes of alarmingly heady silence.

He buried his hands in the dripping weight of Harry’s curls. “Did too.”

“You’re not always allowed to win.”

“Sure I am.” He wanted to sink his teeth into Harry’s jaw. Wanted Harry’s teeth to sink into his own. “What else would I be doing with my time.”

_You_ , that stupid, ringing voice in his mind pleads. _I could be doing you. Fucking offer already, please_.

He’s convinced Harry can read people’s thoughts. His mouth twists into a knowing grin, eyes sparking, hand flattening just above Louis’ bum, on the sweeping curve at the bottom of his spine. Maybe he can only read Louis’.

But Harry just laughed out a quiet “Putting on sunscreen.” and dripped more water across his burned shoulders. Louis dipped his hand in the ocean and trailed a cool fingertip along the slope of Harry’s nose, watching the droplets slide across his red skin. It’s a nice nose. He wants it pressed against his pelvis.

“Funny, funny.” Louis mocked, poking at Harry’s dimple. “If you burn Phoebe _or_ Chandler, I will kill you.” He warned ominously.

“I’ll never understand why you named them after _Friends_ characters.” Harry shook his head, smiling fondly.

“Excuse you.” Louis dug his thumb into Chandler, watching as it deepened with the widening of Harry’s grin. “I named them after the _best Friends_ characters.”

“You know Joey is my favorite.”

“Your favorites don’t matter.” Louis muttered knowingly, bumping his forehead gently against Harry’s. “You exist to give me attention and affection.”

Harry’s lips pressed to his chin and sparked heat through every frayed nerve ending in his body. “That I do.” He agreed. “You know me so well.”

And Louis begins to realize, just then, that the only thing that matters is Harry. No matter the hour, the day, the month, the moment, all he cares about is Harry. Harry’s hands. His eyes. His smile, and his laugh. Whether he’s eaten yet. If he wants to eat with Louis. His body, wrapped around Louis’, hot beneath the covers. It’s Harry, everywhere he looks, lingering behind his shut eyes at night when sleep won’t find him. It’s Harry in the evenings and the mornings, over dinner and breakfast alike. He’s half obsessed, two-thirds in love.

“Stop thinking about me.” Harry whispered, and his mouth is so close to Louis’ that one list forward would have them mashed together.

“I’m not.” Louis exhaled, breathlessly, desperately. “I never think about you. Makes me nauseous.”

Harry’s fingertips skidded across the top knob of his spine. “Okay.”

He could feel his heart in his throat. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“You said that.”

“So did you.”

“Harry…” Except there’s nothing else to say, really, because their voices have tipped below the cadence of the waves, barely reaching their own ears, and Louis thinks, far too idle, _Harry’s going to kiss me_. Louis knows what it looks like when someone wants to kiss him. Knows what it feels like. But this is so much _different_ , with Harry’s heart pounding furiously against his own, bodies slick with seawater and desire, hands splayed across skin. Like lightning zinging through his blood, knocking against every cell. His atoms vibrated apart.

“Harry.” He whispered again. His eyes flickered with the effort to keep from slipping closed.

Harry’s hands curled into fists on his back. “Don’t do that to me.”

“Do what?” Louis asked, tongue so achingly heavy in his mouth. Why weren’t they kissing?

“That voice.” His palms flattened once more, wider this time. “The breathy one. Like you’re asking me for something.”

A pause. “And what if I am?”

“If you wanna give me those words, darling,” Harry started, green eyes blazing, encompassing in their scalding entirety. “I need them out loud.”

Louis couldn’t give him that yet. Soon, sooner with every beat of his needy heart, but not quite yet.

He broke their gazes gently, thumbing the tendon in Harry’s throat. “Let’s go shopping.” He murmured.

When he looked back up, Harry was still staring at him. He didn’t look upset, though, not in the slightest. If anything, maybe he was fonder. His eyes glittered. “Okay,” he agreed, carrying them both towards the shore, water sluicing off their bodies with every step. “But I’m buying you yoga pants.”

Louis pinched his bicep. “Eat your heart out.”

Harry’s mouth moved against his ear when he spoke.

“Don’t act as if I don’t plan to.”

Harry does buy him yoga pants. They’re alarmingly comfy, really, cotton and polyester with cute pockets on the thighs. He raves over them, grinning.

When it comes down to it, though, he can’t pretend like his favorite part isn’t the way they make his arse look.

Harry can’t either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey gang i hope you enjoyed ! please leave kudos and comments ??  
> the elements we're composed of were formed in the interiors of collapsing stars, so technically, we're all made of stardust  
> love you !!  
> <333


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiii i know im posting late but i finished late  
> KINKS (WARNINGS) IN THIS CHAPTER: masturbation, clothing kink (?), mention of sex toys, a lot of dirty talk, harry being bossy, mention of pain kink, phone sex (essentially), slight praising, mention of bondage, mention of overstimulation, basically just a lot of sex stuff  
> also harry types with shit grammar and you cant convince me otherwise  
> zoo wee mama  
> okay enjoy !!?

It starts with Harry leaving his Ramones shirt at Louis’ flat.

He finds it draped over a kitchen chair, rippling as Queenie bat her white paws at the hem. It’s not unusual, to find Harry’s clothes abandoned in his home, whether forgotten or purposeful. It’s no secret that Louis likes wearing his clothes, and Harry likes watching him.

The Ramones shirt is different, though.

Louis thumbed at the material silently, standing in his sun-soaked kitchen, cat brushing softly against his calves. His stomach sparked, twisted up in knots. Harry leaving his top meant he’d gone home in one of Louis’, which is lovely all by it’s self. The image flickers behind Louis’ eyes, all pretty and domestic. Something akin to delight dances over his fingertips. He’s had a concealed obsession with this shirt since Harry first stepped out of his bedroom in it; always found some way to rest his head on Harry’s chest so he can feel it against his cheek, to hold Harry’s bicep so the cotton is beneath his palm.

He took a fistful of the fabric and tucked it beneath his chin, swaying on the spot. Queenie mewled at his feet.

His phone dings, sharp and sudden in the echoing kitchen.

_i left it there on purpose_

Heart in his throat, stomach in his feet, Louis rubbed the shirt against his cheek and smiled at Harry’s message. _I figured that much, actually xx_ , he types back, awkward and fumbling with only one hand.

Harry starts the game, when it comes down to it.

_are you wearing it ?_

Heat bloomed beneath his skin, flooding up his neck and into his face. The fire that had been churning in his gut changes it’s course, from fond to heady, licking through his lungs and up his chest. It wound around his heart, a flaming thread of desire, of precipitous hunger. He chewed furiously on the inside of his lip. _Should I be?_

The answer is instantaneous. _don’t you want to be ?_

There was blood on his tongue from how deep his teeth drove into his lip. _Yes._

Louis’ hands are trembling when he tugs his shirt off his torso, mind racing with unintelligible words that dissolve into letters, into squiggles and lines and dots. They leave a thrilled sort of anxiety bleeding through his veins, sparking and zinging with every shift. His phone buzzes furiously on the tabletop, messages bleeding in with every second. His eyes catch on the _baby_ , the _pretty_ , but he tears his gaze away, cheeks flushed. The shirt is unbearably soft when it settles over his skin, delicate as feathers. It smells like Harry. Strawberry shampoo and cedarwood cologne.

His phone vibrated against the wood once more as he grabbed for it, cheek pressed against his shoulder, nuzzling into the dark cotton. The entirety of his weight rested against the hand planted on the tabletop.

_shit_

_put it on then_

_fuck baby_

_its gonna smell just like you when i get it back_

_jesus_

_youre so fucking pretty lou_

_are you wearing it ?_

Louis’ breath knocked harshly around his lungs, scalding and colored-red. His fingers ached and revolted against the intensity of his grip on his phone. Thoughtless, galvanizing, he manages to snap a blurry photo of his chest, swimming in the fabric of Harry’s shirt. At the top of the screen, his own lips stand stark against his skin, bitten-red and wet. His tongue rests against the bottom one. The muscles in his jaw were flexed. His collarbones were stark before they disappeared beneath the dark neckline, and his own hand was pressed to his diaphragm, fingertips curling, just barely. His body feels alive with craving. He smashes eight different keys before he manages to finally send the picture.

He pretends he has no preconceived notions when he tumbles against his bedroom door and crashes inside, stretching out over his mattress. Stupidly, dangerously, he’s hard, cock straining hotly against the fabric of his boxers. It tents Harry’s shirt obscenely until Louis rucks it up his stomach, cotton scrunching beneath his diaphragm. His toes curl, and his phone buzzes.

_oh my fucking god lou_

He types frantically, desperately, casting no thought into the question until it’s already been delivered. _Can I call you?_

The message has barely finished sending before his phone is lighting up with Harry’s name.

Louis pinned the phone between his shoulder and his ear, eyes sliding closed, hand resting far too low on his stomach. His teeth drove into his lower lip. Cold air nips at his exposed tummy, his extended legs, but it all warms when Harry speaks.

“Lou…”

It’s just one word. Just his name. But he slides his hand beneath the band of his briefs and wraps his fingers around the base of his aching cock.

The air shuddered between his teeth when he breathed, “Hi, Hazza.”

There’s a pause before Harry responds, but only for a second. “What are you doing?” He murmured, voice low and gravelly. “Describe it to me.”

“In my bed.” Louis whispered. His voice shook dangerously. “Just lying here in your shirt. ‘S nice. Feels--feels good.”

“That all?”

No. Not even a little. Not at all. His hand moves unsteadily over his cock, up and down and back up, except it’s not _his_ hand in his head. It’s Harry’s, all big and tan and tattooed. Working slow, and then fast. Without rhythm. Keeping Louis dancing over the edge, tiptoeing on a tightwire. His palm would be hot, slick with lube, slicker than Louis’ is now, but still rough with calluses. The perfect balance between too much and not enough. The thought of it makes Louis’ face hot.

He inhales, shaky. Electricity sparks and cascades down his spine, biting at each of his vertebrae.

“That’s all.”

Pleasure radiates in his bones, nearly painful in its intensity.

“Promise?” Harry asks, so low, voice rumbling through the phone and burrowing in Louis’ fire-hot stomach. When he shuts his eyes, he can see Harry’s hands, reaching out for him. Blanketing his own.

“No.” Louis breaths, unable to restrain it. Harry has always said his fiery tongue would be the thing to get him in trouble, and he was right.

“Mm.” Harry moaned. “Not very nice, trying to keep that from me, is it? Go slow, Lou,” he instructed, and Louis bit down a desperate cry. “Same pace I’m talking. Can you do that?”

This is where things change. Louis knows it. 

He takes a dangerously slow breath.

“Okay.”

Harry is silent for seven seconds. And then, “What are you thinking about?”

“How I never thought I’d be doing this.” Louis chokes out, a nervous laugh bubbling up from his throat and squeezing between his clenched teeth. “How I--” he gasped as his thumb skidded over the head of his cock. “How I want something more.”

“Yeah?” Harry rumbled, voice blanketing Louis’ sweltering skin, alighting infernos inside his blood. “You’re not gonna give it to yourself, though. Not until I tell you. You’re gagging for it, aren’t you? I can hear it in your voice. You want that little black shoebox beneath your bed.” He hears the way Louis’ breath catches, and Louis hears the grin in his words. “Did you think I didn’t know about it, darling? Oh, no, I know all about it. Know you probably feel so empty right now. I’d bet you want to get that long purple one. Don’t you? Tell me, Lou, let me hear your voice.”

“Yes.” He wheezed, stomach twisting. Something warred within him, a desire to move his hand faster parrying with the need to follow Harry’s instructions. It lit his cells on fire. His face was hot. “Yeah, yes, I want it. Really want it.”

“You’re not getting it.” Harry murmurs, and Louis groans, outright, unbridled by the bleeding lip between his teeth. “Not today, love. I want just your hand.” He paused. “Just my voice.”

Louis wants more. More of Harry. He wants Harry to be beside him, stretched across the mattress, palms mapping Louis’ body with aching lethargy so that even when Louis was begging for it, pleading and crying, he wouldn’t speed up until _he_ decided to. Louis could picture it. Feel it, almost; the callused pads of his palm, scraping softly along Louis’ untouched skin, dancing and tracing, feather-light. The other hand would have two fingers buried in his arse, not thrusting but grinding firm circles into Louis’ prostate until he couldn’t make any noise. Harry’s mouth would move against his temples as he whispered little things in his ear, promises to take care, praises if he was being good. Harry would be shirtless, still wearing his stupidly tight pants, but Louis would be entirely bare, feeling the roughness of Harry’s jeans against his naked thigh. In the end, it would be some silly, menial laudation that would send him over the hot edge--something humdrum. A _pretty_. A _mine_. A _so good for me_. Something that would make him blush later on. In the moment, he wouldn’t care. Couldn’t make himself.

“Just your voice?” He squeaked, brows pulling together. His toes curled, and the muscles in his thigh jumped, flighty as a colt and twice as wound up.

Harry hummed in affirmation. When Louis shut his eyes, he imagined he could hear Harry biting his lip through the phone. “Yeah, darling. I think you can do it. You thought I never heard you when you used to fuck yourself in the bunk during uni, but I did. You’d get so hungry for it, wouldn’t you, pet? Is it still like that? Do you still whine and cry for it?”

Louis can’t form the words. He grapples for them, but his hand meets empty air and speechless desire. Not even. Something thicker and stronger than desire. Some innate pull fashioned in his DNA, etched into his bones. Something huge and desperate and pleading, wordlessly.

“Louis.” Harry growled. Louis couldn’t determine if the crack in his voice was from the phone’s speaker or not. “Tell me. Are you needy for it?”

“Yes, yes,” Louis rasped. His fingers twitched and tightened around his cock, his other hand fisting in the bedsheets to refrain from reaching beneath his bed. “Harry, I’m--I just--”

“What, Lou?” He breathed. Louis’ hand moved faster as infernos sparked in his blood, materializing in his cells, growing hotter and higher with every exhale. He whined, mouth against the receiver, and Harry made a low sound like a purr, beautiful.

“I don’t know, I just, I don’t…” Louis stumbled fruitlessly, words tangling, lost in the middle of his throat.

“Has anyone ever gotten you off with their hand, Louis?” He whispered. “Have you ever known anyone else’s touch?”

He has. Louis wasn’t a virgin because he was a prude. He’d had his share of messy college hook-ups, getting off just to get off, grinding on a dancefloor and being dragged into the bathroom. Or doing the dragging. He’s known other’s hands; sloppy, rough, fast. He’s had others in his own, unbalanced in his small palm, angle awkward and air hot. He wasn’t a bastard--if someone gave him a handjob, he reciprocated. But the second an invitation home arrived, he brushed it aside. He was… saving that part.

“Yes.” He whimpered. The fire in his stomach stoked, sharpening, swirling down and back up. “I have.” He took the hem of Harry’s shirt between his teeth, biting down, but that only makes it worse. _He’s jerking off in Harry’s shirt._

Harry was quiet for a moment. “Was it as good as your own?”

The answer came fast. Thoughtless. “No.”

“Why?”

“Had to--had to pretend I wasn’t thinking about… about other things.” Louis whispered, eyes squeezing shut, hips bucking up into his fist.

Harry just hummed, tone knowing and smug, and Louis thanked the universe for it. Even if Harry knew what he alluded to, Louis didn’t have the courage to say it aloud. Couldn’t admit to how he heard Harry whispering his name, pictured Harry’s body hovering above his own, felt Harry’s hands on his overheated skin. Waited and prayed for the day that he didn’t have to imagine anymore. It scratched and tore his chest apart. Ached viscerally beneath his diaphragm. He was sick with it.

“What are you doing, Lou?” Harry murmured. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine Harry was right beside him, hand moving inside his pants. 

“Your shirt--” His cheeks stained crimson and hot. “I can’t… Hazza, I can’t--”

“You’re so good, Lou, do you know that?”

Oh. That’s different.

Something rears it’s flame-crowned head back in his chest, roaring.

“You have no idea what I see, do you? What I think about.” He hummed, murmured something under his breath that Louis’ desire-addled brain didn’t comprehend. He was drowning in heat. “Try not to, but I always end up imagining pinning your hands above your head and eating you out until you cry. I’d end up biting you, but you’d let me. You’d probably like it, wouldn’t you? Ask me for more and more until you can’t take it, and even then, I’ll keep going because I know that’s what you want. That’s what you’ve always wanted, huh? To be made to take it even when you think you can’t. To be used like that. Right, baby? You’d squirm so much I’d have to tie your hands to the bed--”

Tension snapped. Louis came all over his stomach.

It felt cliche, to say it was the best orgasm of his life, but maybe there’s a reason people depend on cliches, after all. It was like--like every piece of him was sparking. Like he was doused in an ocean of bliss, pooling on his skin, sinking into his blood. It sank him down, down, down, reduced him to a vessel of rapture and silent cries. His body arced, bowing off the mattress, toes curling in the sheets as his curls mussed against his pillow. Harry’s shirt bunched at the top of his chest, warm and damp with sweat. Vaguely, distantly, he knows that Harry is speaking, soft voice dancing through the phone, but it reaches him as if from underwater, seeping slow and muffled. He just. He breathes and he floats and he shuts his eyes against the pale sunlight beaming through the curtains. He’s transcendent. It’s heaven.

When he idles back into his own body, and he can actually listen as opposed to just hear, Harry is still talking. He’s always been a talker, ever since Louis’ known him. It’s no surprise that it translates. “That was good, Louis,” he whispers. “You’re so good, did such a good job for me. So pretty, Lou, so good.”

Louis hummed, and there was silence for a long time.

He wants to be embarrassed, except post-orgasm bliss is a very real thing that completely decimates his headspace. His best mate just talked him into an orgasm, while he was wearing his shirt, and he came at the image of his hands being tied to a bed. It’s mortifying. If he didn’t feel so good right now, he’d be utterly horrified. He makes a mental note not to say that aloud.

“If I didn’t feel so good right now, I’d be utterly horrified.”

Oh, whatever. His brain-to-mouth filter has never been exceptional. He can wait until tomorrow for the humiliation to roll in.

Harry laughed, low and soft and pretty-sounding. “You feel good?”

“Mmhmm.” He rolled on his side, arm tucking beneath his pillow, phone resting hands-free on the side of his face. He stretched his legs out and giggled when his knees popped. “Loose and warm and… squirmy.”

Another laugh, more amused this time. “Squirmy?”

“Yeah, you know, like,” he wriggled happily on his mattress, just slightly, as if Harry could see him, and then grinned against the receiver. “Dopey. Easy.”

“Languid?” Harry offered.

“Sure.”

In the morning, he won’t be able to look Harry in the face at all. But, for right now, he just wants Harry’s voice. It’s strange and it’s intimate, but he’s sleepy, and Sleepy Lou never had a problem with asking for things. “Tell me about your day.”

“I was with you all day.” Harry laughed.

“Then tell me about yesterday.”

There’s a snort, and a rustle like clothes shifting, and then Harry complies, delving into those stupidly exact details that no one likes but Louis loves. He’d like to say he listens, to say he knows what Harry had for breakfast yesterday morning and where he went, who he spoke to, but he doesn’t, really. His head drags him somewhere far away, racing mind lulled to complacency by Harry’s constant, steady stream of deep words. He thinks, before he can stop himself, that he could get very used to this. Hearing Harry ramble in his ear after a numbing orgasm, going on and endlessly on about everything and nothing. He wants _this_ , with Harry, all that comes with this. He wants the flowing conversation, sweet and gentle like waves that slide up the sand and kiss his feet. He wants Harry in the mornings and the evenings both, arms wrapped around his waist, bending down to bury his nose in Louis’ hair so that Louis won’t have to stand on his tiptoes. He wants more than he’s ever wanted.

“Louis.”

He doesn’t know how many times Harry had said his name before he heard it. He tucked his nose against the neckline of Harry’s shirt, inhaling.

“Yeah?”

“You sound tired.” A pause. “Do you want me to stay on?”

He pulled is bottom lip between the sharp edges of his teeth, eyes fluttering shut. He _was_ tired, and wide awake. “Yes, please.”

“Okay.” He said, soft, gentle. “Lou?”

“Yes, Haz.”

He paused again. If Louis could see his face, he knows it would be sweet. Careful. A hint of a crease would form between his brows in his sincerity, and one half of his mouth would be pulled up in something akin to a smile. His right dimple would be flickering.

“Everything’s gonna be fine.”

It was like the wind swept through his lungs and released a colossal breath he hadn’t felt himself restraining. Like water rushing past a broken dam, it swept from him, warm and absolute.

“I know, Haz.” He whispered. And he did. “I know it is.”

“Okay.” Harry murmured. “I love you.”

He curled up on his side and shut his eyes. “I love you, too.”

If his voice caught somewhere in his throat on the way out, neither of them mentioned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed !! please leave kudos and comments because i love them a lot and also they're motivational  
> smile !! cows have best friends and that's beautiful !!  
> hey i love you  
> <333


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting this at 11:30 at night because i am the woooooooorst  
> WARNINGS IN THIS CHAPTER: idk there's discussions of possessiveness but if youre in this fic you all like it anyway  
> enjoy  
> <333

“Harry told me something very interesting the other day.”

Louis froze, hand halfway outstretched towards the bag of crisps balanced on the cushion.

Liam stared at him, brows raised patiently, ankle resting on the opposite knee. He looked a bit like a therapist, and Louis wanted to whack him.

“What’s he told you, then?” He sighed with faux-disinterest and brought his hand back to his lap, mouth dry, crisp craving decimated.

“Oh, just little things,” Liam began nonchalantly. “Flirting. Hair pulling. Getting off over the phone, just general friendliness.”

Louis’ chest sort of caved in on itself. This thing with he and Harry… of course it wasn’t _natural_ , but it wasn’t _sacrilegeous_ , either. They didn’t--they shouldn’t have to talk about it. Explain it. Of course Louis told Zayn, because he tells Zayn everything, and he told Niall, because Niall was there, so he can’t really be mad at Harry for tattling to Liam, but something about it… had Harry been blabbing that Louis was weird? That the things he _liked_ were weird? They hadn’t discussed it. They hadn’t discussed anything at all.

Harry was the one who had pulled his hair. Harry was the one who dug fingertips into his bruise. Harry was the one who wanted to tie his hands to the bed--

“I don’t particularly care what you to do, or talk about, or whatever,” Liam made a face and shook his head. Some of Louis’ anxiety eased. “But you know it’s going to destroy your relationship, right?”

Bailing water from a boat with paper buckets would’ve been easier than talking to Liam about this.

He curled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. “Why would you say that?” He whispered. “Why--I mean, w-why would you think that?”

Liam made a face. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, Tommo.”

“Well you are.”

Silence radiated.

“I’m sorry.” Louis caved, rubbing at his eyebrow. His heart beat uncomfortably against his sternum, like a gavel against wood. “I know you’re just looking out for me.”

He watched as Liam pursed his lips to one side, and then the other. “I am, you know. I just--” he shook his head. “Maybe I don’t get it because I’ve never been the type of person that can do that. But I don’t really think you are, either.”

Louis shoved his fist under his chin as he thought, eyelashes tickling his cheekbones when he glanced down. Was Liam wrong? Was he lying? Here’s what Louis knew: not being with Harry was heavy. Being with him might’ve been heavier. Which weight is more to bear; the relationship you alienate, or the friendship you save? When he stared at them in his hands, he couldn’t decide which was harder to hold up.

He gnawed on his lip until it was coppery with blood. “Why did you kiss Zayn? The first time, why did you?”

Liam stared at him for an alarmingly long moment. It dragged on until Louis’ skin felt tight over his face. “Because I loved him, and I’d never realized he didn’t know before then.”

“Harry--” the words caught behind his teeth and stalled out. “We’re not like that. We know that… that it’s messy.” He murmured.

Liam rubbed at his chin, and Louis thought, far too idle, about how much easier this conversation would be if he were in Harry’s arms. If Harry were here, leaving a trail of clothes across Louis’ apartment, cuddling into Louis’ side. If he weren’t just a mirage in Louis’ mind. “I just don’t want you and Harry to tear each other apart.” Liam said finally. “Don’t try to convince me that neither of you have the power to do that to each other. He’s absolutely wrapped around your finger. And you’re whipped for him.”

Louis tipped his head back and sighed.

“Can we have this conversation high?” He posed to the ceiling, mostly joking with an entirely serious facet lingering too close to the forefront of his words.

Liam chuckled. “If that will keep you from clamming up about it.”

Louis nods emphatically, and then they’re smoking, passing a spliff between lazy fingers and palms, giggling when they shouldn’t be. Louis let himself feel proud; Liam usually took much more cajoling before he agreed to smoke with all five of them, and never one on one. He traced smoke patterns against the background of the ceiling, wondering how much he’d have to diet until he could float too.

“He’s so fucking hot.” He blurt finally, shaking his head. Liam laughed at the other end of the couch, muffled through a mouthful of crisps. “He’s literally so hot, I don’t think you get it. He talked me to an orgasm the other day.”

Liam chucked a pillow at his head but giggled again, louder this time. “Yeah, Harry told me about that, actually. Not in so many words, but along those lines.”

“It’s ‘cause I was wearing his shirt.” He mumbled. His lips were loose, numb. He blew air between them. “He thinks I look hot in his clothes, because he’s possessive. Likes knowing that I’m his.”

Crisps crunched. Louis scratched at his ankle. “ _Are_ you his?”

An awkward shrug. “I think so, yeah.” He admitted. His stomach went watery, hiccupping. “I don’t know.”

Liam shifted, hair falling over his thick brows, and Louis giggled when the strands bounced, shiny and dark. “Do you want to be?”

Louis huffed: “I don’t know.” Eloquent as ever.

“You _like_ wearing his clothes, though.”

True. He fisted a hand in the fabric of his jumper, which was actually Harry’s, marvelling in the softness of the blue-purple strands against his palms. It felt nice to wear Harry’s clothes. Made him feel quiet and delicate. Worn-soft.

He shrugged and took a drag from the diminishing spliff.

“Yeah.”

And that was all there was to it.

It becomes some sort of trend after that. Not Harry talking Louis into an orgasm--that was a special occasion, evidently. But Harry’s clothes being all over Louis’ flat, and Louis’ own clothes disappearing with every visit--it’s a pattern. One that Louis doesn’t particularly mind.

Louis stepped out of the bathroom in Harry’s enormous lavender jumper and his pants, scratching at the mess of hair on his head. Harry was sprawled across the sofa, hand splayed over his bare stomach, scrolling numbly through Netflix options. Louis curled up on his chest.

“You are small.” Harry murmured into his hair, and Louis punched his shoulder. His fisted a hand in the sweater, where it rucked up at the base of Louis’ spine. “This looks nice on you.”

Louis stole the remote and shrugged. “Everything looks nice on me.”

Being close to Harry like this wasn’t electric. That was the part that Louis savored the most. It was natural, like taking a step and knowing there was ground beneath your feet instead of feeling like it’s been torn away. Like the taste of a meal you’ve had a million times over again, just as good on every occasion. It’s this: Louis knows Harry more than he knows himself. They fit on a molecular level, an atomic level. This and this. Curling against him is like curling against the other half of his soul. This. It’s what he’s been waiting for.

He had just started a new episode of Gogglebox when Harry nodded, palm slipping beneath the knit fabric to lie flat along his spine. “That’s true.” He muttered, fingertips dancing over the knobs of his vertebrae, all callused and warm. “But I like you more in my clothes.”

Louis didn’t look at him, even when his own soul pleaded with him to. His eyes watered. “Is that so?”

“Mmhmm.” Harry hummed, voice rumbling up through Louis’ chest, sinking down to his toes. It heat his skin, his lungs, sparked flowers at the base of his diaphragm that glimmered with tongues of flame. “It makes you look even smaller.”

“I will break your shins with my feet.” Louis snapped, empty of anger. The words echoed with something akin to fondness before he smothered them. “I will take a knife to your kneecaps.”

“You are the most violent person I’ve ever met.” Harry muttered, a little impressed.

“Call me small again. Dare you.”

“Mean, too.” Harry huffed, palming at his arse, which silenced him almost instantaneously. It was like some twisted trigger. _Louis’ bum is his mute button_. He prayed silently that Harry wouldn’t brag about it.

They’d laid like that, eyes trained lazily on the telly, with Louis’ head pillowed on Harry’s warm, beating heart and Harry’s hands planted on his bum. It reminded Louis of uni. Of lying on Harry’s bunk, tangled together between the blankets, falling asleep with their heads resting atop each other’s. Of Harry talking in his sleep, slurring over Louis’ name. It had made him blush. Sometimes it still did. Harry had been so much smaller, then, at least the same height as Louis, with those curls like clouds around his head and round softness on his hips. It was different now. Maybe a little better.

How long had it been this way? How long had it been _Harry_ , the only one ever able to keep Louis quiet, to lull him into serenity, like a rock sinking to the bottom of a lake and pulling him along? When had Harry become the axis that Louis’ world turned on?

Some annoyingly tinny voice in the front of his mind chimed, _since the moment you saw him, Louis_. He swatted it away and pressed his nose to Harry’s 17BLACK tattoo.

“What are you thinking about?” Harry whispered, lips against his temple, tracing words without voice. 

Louis shifted a little, squirming away from the heat sparking in his tummy. “Who says I’m thinking about something?”

“I can feel it.” Harry said with mock-seriousness. He pressed a hand flat over Louis’ forehead and closed his eyes, like a festival fortune teller reading his future. “Mmm, I’m getting traces of apples. Harry is cute. Birthday cake. Harry has nice hair. Niall?!” He scrunched his face up and opened his eyes, betrayal swimming in his gaze. “What is Niall doing there!”

Louis could barely restrain his giggles. He shrugged. “He’s the love of my life.”

Harry wrapped him up in his arms, faux-grumbling, shaking a fist at the ceiling. “Damn him!” He called, squeezing Louis--who had long since dissolved into hysterical laughter--against his chest. “Stupid Irishman, stealing you away.” He pouted. “ _My_ pretty.”

“Oh, hush.” Louis muttered, hiding his fiery face against Harry’s neck. His hands itched. “I’m wearing _your_ clothes.”

Harry’s hand swept up and down his side, too sweet, too soft. “Is that what you’re thinking about, then?”

“Never.”

“ _Give up, never surrender!_ ”

“Please don’t quote _Galaxy Quest_ at me, Harold, how many times do I have to tell you this week?”

“ _I_ _t’s stupid, but I’m going to do it._ ”

“Harry.”

He sighed grumpily. “Fine.” He lasted another three seconds. “ _By Grapthar’s hammer, you shall be avenged!_ ”

Louis kicked out blindly, shrugging when he connected sharply with a shin and Harry yelped. “I’m best friends with an idiot.”

Harry pinched his bum. “Would you rather I quote Spaceballs?”

“Absolutely not.”

“ _I knew it, I’m surrounded by assholes._ ”

Louis leaned back to stare down at him, grabbing Harry’s face between his hands and scarcely restraining a goofy grin at the pride in his emerald eyes. “You are the worst.” He groaned, shaking Harry’s head back and forth between his palms. His lips pursed, and then parted, all pink and big and soft, and Louis realized too slowly that he was staring at them. He could almost feel his pupils expanding.

Harry tipped up.

Louis flattened a hand on his chest, halting him in his tracks, eyes still trained on his dainty mouth. “Don’t even _think_ about kissing me right now, Harry Styles.” He whispered.

He leaned back. His hair flattened against the sofa cushion. “Okay.” He whispered back, eyes soft, glimmering.

Louis swallowed. “Don’t look at me like that, either.”

“I’m not looking at you any different than I always do.”

He bridled the petulant _are too_ that wanted to escape between his teeth. “You look weird.” He said instead, poking Harry’s left dimple. Chandler.

“Gee, thanks, Lou.” Harry muttered, rolling his grassy eyes and squeezing his arse. Louis squeaked, and the grin that overtook his mouth was practically seraphic. It stole the breath straight from his lungs.

“Oh, shut up.” Louis huffed.

Harry listened. But there was something else, something he’d left out. Louis heard it, lingering on his tongue, teetering on the edge of his teeth when Harry chuckled and pulled him closer. There was something he’d left out. Something he was keeping away. Louis could almost taste it.

He didn’t ask. And Harry didn’t say.

They fell asleep like that, tangled effortlessly together, breathing against each other’s skin. It was 1:00am by the time they woke up, stumbling hand-in-hand to Louis’ bedroom, twining together beneath his cold duvet. Louis was halfway unconscious when Harry kissed his hair and breathed _I love you_ , painfully soft in the near-silent room, like, maybe, Louis wasn’t even supposed to hear. Louis must’ve stumbled over his words, because Harry giggled when he said it back.

He burrowed further into Harry’s side and shut his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed loves, please leave kudos and comments !!  
> sea otters hold hands while they're sleeping so they don't drift away  
> come visit me on tumblr !!  
> [tumblr](%E2%80%9C)  
> love you !!


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, hi !!!  
> i am so sorry. truly truly truly, i am so so unbelievably sorry. i've never left a fic like this before, but so much has happened and very honestly, i lost drive for this right when i really needed this. for months i just couldn't write it and it killed me. to that same degree, things have gotten better, and i'm back! you can yell at me in the comments if you want, but lou and hazza are back and rearing to go.  
> funny enough, this chap is mostly angst  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: ummm light punishment, public shame, the barest implications of subspace, jealousy ?? ugh you're all here for a reason you get it  
> enjoy !!??  
> <333

He tries not to glance at Harry when he settles into Niall’s lap. Truly, he does. Tries to pretend the reaction he’ll gain isn’t the reason he’s doing this. Never mind that it is. Louis never claimed to be a good man, never claimed to be more than he is; twisted, jealous, callow. Pernicious, maybe, at times. At least he recognizes it.

“Hello, Lou.” Niall says, with no overwhelming measure of surprise. An impromptu cuddle isn’t bizarre from any one of them. From Louis especially, if he’s being transparent. “Nice to see you.”

Louis rolled his eyes and chuckled, tossing his arms around Niall’s neck. Some action movie played loudly on the telly, explosions vibrating the floor, but Louis had no interest in it. Not like Zayn and Liam, who were tangled together on the couch, awkwardly long limbs intertwined in a way that should be uncomfortable, except they both look happier than Louis has seen them in a while. Niall was sat on the floor, and Harry was cross-legged on the recliner. He glowered at the television.

“Hello, love,” Louis sighed back, tucking his face into Niall’s neck. He smells like cologne and Old Spice.

Niall pet his hair, the doll he is, and wrapped a strong arm around Louis’ waist. “What’s brought this on, then?”

Louis’ not entirely sure. Wondering if Harry got jealous when he cuddled other people, maybe. Craving to be held. He couldn’t elucidate his own brain if someone gave him a translator, most days, and something about today amplifies his incompetence. He just--he wants. He aches for a thousand different things, but he can’t name them. Doesn’t know how to get them.

Something inside him is yelling. He wants Harry to be mad. He wants him riled, red-faced, snatching Louis into his arms and holding him tight so that no one else even thinks of taking him away. It wraps hands around his lungs and squeezes tight.

A muscle in Harry’s jaw is feathering.

“Love you the most, Niall, obviously.” Louis teased, settling heavily against Niall’s chest. He hums and grins when Niall’s hand scratches through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes, massaging his scalp. He inhaled deeply. “You smell nice.”

Niall snorted. “You’re weird.”

He nearly forgets why he did this in the first place as he chuckles, reaching up to pat Niall’s cheek. “You love my weird.”

“Louis.”

His stomach clenched.

Harry’s eyes were still trained on the television, but there was no mistaking that he’d spoken. Louis could pick his voice over a crowd of thousands. The muscle in his jaw still flutters, like a butterfly trapped beneath glass, and there is a frigidity to his pretty eyes, a carefully masked irk. Like Louis is a domestic bother, a chip of paint that he doesn’t want to fill, a cracked teacup he doesn’t want to throw away. His bejeweled hands laid tantalizingly on the arms of the recliner, palm open, turned up. Even his posture was lethargic, lazing. Only the set of that marble jaw betrayed his vexations.

“Harry?” Louis responded, voice thin and high, delicate like a charm, eyes unwavering from where they tried to catch Harry’s gaze.

Harry curled two fingers towards himself, once, twice. Casual. _Come here_.

Louis went.

There are eyes on him as he obeys, he can feel them, the hot weight of them burning through his skin like orangish coals. He doesn’t meet them. Can’t. His attention belongs to Harry, is held in the golden palm of his strong hand like glass, so quick to break should he tighten his fist. Until he does, it will stay there.

Louis comes to a stop before Harry’s chair, eyes on his face, knees against his knees.

Harry does not look up at him.

It’s a sickeningly long lifetime that Louis stands before him. Shame squirms beneath his diaphragm like a burning snake, writhing around flames, fruitlessly searching for a reprieve. It finds none. Harry keeps his eyes forward while Louis keeps his on Harry's face, searching for any minute variation in his stony expression, chest tightening with each passing second, millisecond, heart beating furiously through his blood until his skin thrums. It hurts, being ignored, and for a moment, he thinks of sinking to his knees so he might be in Harry’s direct gaze. Of bowing his head and genuflecting at the foot of his chair, like a peasant to their king, an apostle to their lord. But Harry wants his shame; wants it burning hot atop Louis’ skin so he can run his tongue across it, lick at it and gather it and drink. He wants Louis to hurt, just a little, just enough. Wants to stake his claim to Louis’ heart, to Louis’ will. The glass lies in his palms.

Sometimes, Louis imagines lying indefensible across his mattress and letting Harry work him until he’s breathless and trembling.

At his sides, his hands shake.

Harry’s teaching him a lesson. Louis will learn.

“Louis?” Niall asks quietly, when one minute turns into a handful, and he still hasn’t shifted. Has scarcely breathed.

He watches the fall of Harry’s curls when he turns his face to look serenely at Niall. His lovely face betrays none of the indignation that existed when Louis had approached him. “Yes, Niall?” Harry says.

Maybe it should be strange, that talking to Louis means talking to Harry in the same breath. Louis can’t make himself believe as much.

“Is he…?”

“He’s alright.” Harry says.

And he finally, _finally_ , looks up into Louis’ face, meets his desperate gaze, careful, calculating, not unkind. Louis’ knees nearly give out—Harry reaches out to grip his elbow and hold him steady. The shame that had twisted within his icy-hot chest dissipated beneath Harry’s soft touch.

Harry nods again. “He’s alright. Aren’t you?” The callused pads of his fingers scrape across the inside of Louis’ elbow, where the skin is thin and warm and quilted with bluish veins.

“Mmhmm.” Louis managed to choke. He listed forward, aching to fall into Harry’s open body, rolling onto the balls of his toes so he doesn’t tumble forward in the magnetic thrum that pulses through his blood. Again, he hums, but it’s listless, meaningless, just a noise in his throat and on the backs of his teeth. Harry cast him a soft sort of look.

“Would you like to sit?” Harry whispers, near-silent. The query bounces between them solitarily, and echoes with words unspoken. _Would you like to sit? Or kneel?_ Harry hasn’t yet looked away from his face, and the steady intensity of his pine gaze settles Louis’ surging blood in his fiery veins. He’s not sure if they’re still subject to spectators. He doesn’t particularly care.

He should kneel. He hurt Harry’s feelings. He should prove his apology. Repent.

He already stood, though. He’s already been punished. Already taken his consequence without dispute.

His head rushes with parrying voices, hypocritical, opposite. This is too confusing.

Louis twisted his fingers around, tangling them in front of his chest, eyes caught on his shaking palms. “Sit with you.” He whispers. His throat is thick with churning emotion, so he clears it and says again, “Can I sit with you?”

Harry’s massive palm circled his wrist. “Of course, doll.”

So, Louis clambers onto his lap, sighing shyly against the base of Harry’s blush-warm neck as they fold into each other. His knees tuck on either side of Harry’s hips, squished between the cushioned arms of the recliners, and his feet hook over Harry’s strong thighs and lock there. They twine like yarn and string. Knotted together.

Harry’s hands settled broad across the knobs of his spine. “Y’alright?” He asks.

Louis doesn’t answer. Not quite yet. Instead, he threads his sweater-clad arms around Harry’s neck and holds him close, heart stuttering indecipherably within his icy-hot chest. His lungs ache, so sickeningly overused, that they seem to swell beneath his rib cage, as if desperate to break open and cradle Harry’s own. Their hearts pound in tandem against each other.

“Harry.” He murmurs, just a brush of his lips across Harry’s jugular, where his heart beats fast and thick. And then, again, “Harry.”

Harry’s hands stroked up his spine until they cupped the back of his neck. “Louis?” He pressed Louis’ face further into his shoulder, away from the light, away from the fear. To a place where everything was dark and cool and simple, and the air tasted like serene satisfaction.

When Louis stayed silent, he went on. “Close your eyes, love. Rest.”

“I’m terrified of resting.” Louis whispered slowly.

“Why?”

“You’re never there when I wake up.”

Harry’s heart gives two harsh thumps. Then, it falls still. “Louis…”

“Do you remember my birthday?” Louis whispers against Harry’s Adam’s apple, arms tightening around his neck. Harry’s palms still their path across the plains of his back, and then begin again, a little lighter, a little slower. “You should’ve laid down with me, when you carried me to bed. Your back must have hurt in the morning.”

“Didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” Harry’s knuckles thumped over the ridges of his spine. “Know you like taking up space when you’re drunk.”

“Also like cuddling.”

There’s a confession they’re tiptoeing around, ever so careful, closer and closer with every cycle. Sickeningly terrified, each time, to knock it over and hear it clatter against the floor. It weighs heavy on Harry’s words, on Louis’ hands. Casts shadows over their parted mouths when Louis tips back to meet his gaze. Harry’s teeth are white against his rosebud lips. He doesn’t mean to reach up and press his fingernail against the enamel, against the edges of Harry’s bunny teeth, but his hand moves and his knuckle brushes against Harry’s top lip and Harry’s breath skids across the pad of his fingertip, warm and soft and slow. It’s dizzying, intoxicating. Louis inhales, nose against the hollow of Harry’s throat, like he could breathe the whole of him in if he tried hard enough.

Something in his chest feels sick. Harry’s hands almost burn where they touch him. He should get up. He should go back to sitting on the floor. Atop Harry’s thighs, he squirms.

“Next time, then.” Harry murmurs, flippant, ever-so-unaffected.

His heart flips. Ache swirls in his stomach, and he shifts back to stare up into Harry’s unaffected expression. Suddenly, sickeningly, he’s struck with the realization that Harry has no _idea_ what this is like; has no notion of how Louis hurts for him, aches for him, breaks for him, how he lives eternally in Louis’ mind and his chest and his veins. How he’s consumed, every damn day.

Harry tips down to look into his face when he feels Louis’ vertebrae steel beneath his palms. He asks, harshly casual: “Y’alright?”

Louis pushes him away. “You have no idea.” He murmurs, head swimming, mouth shaking. “You have no _fucking_ idea.”

Harry’s brows go tight. “What’d you mean?”

“What the fuck do you think I mean?” Louis snarled through his teeth, thumping his fist against Harry’s chest. Nausea twists in the very pit of his gut, cousin to the snake of shame that had danced just minutes before. “You… you--”

“Louis,” Harry begins, a little sharper than before, green eyes dark and disoriented. “Tell me--”

Louis stands. His thighs bite cold.

“Shut up.” He whispers. His limbs lay heavy with the weight of deities, of mountains and worlds and galaxies, sinking, compressing. From the corner of his eye, he sees Zayn sit up from the circle of Liam’s arms, eyes darting between the two of them comically. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t possibly, I’m--” It swells inside him like a wave. “I’m turning inside out because of you.”

He can feel the eyes again. The whole world watches him; the dust motes in the air and the strands of the carpet. 

The tears sting like fire. He hopes they burn Harry hotter.

“And this, this doesn’t affect you like it does me!” He bursts too suddenly, like a rubber band snapping against skin when someone finally pulls it too taut. “All you have to do is fucking, like--” he chokes down a sour _order me around_. “But for me…”

Harry is staring at him.

A hand touches his shoulder blade. Zayn’s. Tears drip off his chin--he hadn’t realized they’d fallen from his eyes. The room feels warmer than it did a moment before, rising with the fury that seeps from Louis’ skin like heat off pavement.

“Doll--” Harry starts.

Zayn hushes Louis softly when he opens his mouth. He can still feel the scream at the base of his throat.

“Let’s go then, babes,” Zayn muttered against his ear.

For a long moment, Louis just stares. Stares and stares and stares. Harry’s mouth still colors with the word, with the name, _doll_ , but his eyes are bitter with heartbreak and confusion and his fingers tremble where they rest against his knees.

Snakes, in the cavity of Louis’ chest. Fury and frustration and confusion and shame. They twist and squirm over each other, tangled, attached. There isn’t one without another.

When Zayn’s thin hands press against Louis’ waist, when they turn him away, he goes.

He ends up in Niall’s bed with Zayn curled up beside him, silent, eyes shut, eyelashes fanning against his cheekbones. His breaths are steady and they make Louis’ steadier, like sheep to be counted before slumber. Yet, sleep is not to find him.

“You don’t understand, Zayn.” Louis breathed, twisting Zayn’s ring around and around on his dark, sharp knuckle. The pain sears behind his eyes before the words come out, but Zayn only opens his eyes when he speaks. “I’m…” a sob rips from his throat, harsh as a knife.

His breaths shake.

“I’m a fucking mess.”

Zayn strokes his cheeks and his hair and beneath his eyes as he cries, gathering up his tears from his raw skin, silent save the gentle outpouring of pity and support from his pretty hazel eyes. He takes one of Louis’ hands in both of his and kisses his knuckles, sighing softly.

These are the pieces he’s broken into. He snuffles into his palm.

“You’re not _sick_ , Lou.” Zayn murmurs, when the tears dry and his eyelids drag with every blink. “For wanting what you want. For letting him--he needs it just as much, I think. Needs you. I know that.” A bitter pause. “He’s trying.”

“Zayn…” Louis begins impatiently, shaking his head. “There isn’t anything he has to try _after_. I’ve given him me--all of me. And there he is, acting like it’s no big fucking thing. Like it doesn’t take everything from me to… to want…”

Zayn presses fingertips to his furrowed eyebrows.

“Get some sleep.” He says, and Louis’ heart clangs against his battered rib cage, echoing like iron on iron. His lungs won’t swell for a dizzyingly long moment. “It always helps.”

Through the wall, he can hear the low timbre of mixing voices, Harry’s and Liam’s and Niall’s, angry questions countered by calming placations. Words and words and senseless words and his name. _Louis. Louis_.

He sits up. Swings his legs over the bed.

_Y’alright?_

_You have no fucking idea._

Lays back down.

Harry’s voice is still swimming through the wall, curling up and settling in his ears, when he shuts his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love you all so so so so much  
> i'm so sorry again for disappearing for months without a word !! at least is wasn't 18 months/5 years ??  
> please please please come say hi on tumblr, i love chatting with y'all !! https://www.tumblr.com/blog/goodmorninglou  
> love you !!  
> <333


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god !! she updates sometimes !!  
> fr tho, i'm sorry i keep taking breaks from this, it just means a lot to me and i dont want to fuck it up. anyway  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: nothing really just vague discussions of pain kink also louis kisses someone else but its like literally two lines  
> uhhhhh enjoy !!

“So, you won’t even talk to me now?”

They stand, static, in Liam’s kitchen, Louis statuesque before the stove and the whistling copper kettle, Harry with a shoulder against the doorjamb. Louis doesn’t look at him, but he can feel Harry’s hot gaze on the back of his neck, drawing a blush beneath his fiery skin.

They haven’t spoken a word in six days.

Louis’ stomach curdles; he swallows down sick and vertigo.

“We’re talking now, aren’t we?” He responds, far too steady. Unaffected in a way he never has been with Harry. He moves the kettle off the hot burner, onto a cold one, inhaling deep and slow the way Zayn taught him to, until his chest and the base of his throat burns. Harry scuffles, like he’s going to come closer, and Louis darts over to the fridge for the milk. “A civil conversation and everything--you should be right proud of me, Styles. Haven’t made a cock joke yet.”

“I want you to make cock jokes.”

His voice is closer. If Louis closed his eyes, he could feel the wisp of Harry’s fingers against the back of his shirt.

“I would, but I think they’re too long.” Louis offers. Harry doesn’t laugh.

He turns and casts a weak smile; Harry’s within an arm’s reach. Neither make a sound as Louis leaves the kitchen, tea in hand.

When Harry joins the rest of them in the front room half an hour later, his eyes are rimmed with red.

He sees Harry often enough. In passing. Their arms brush as Louis steps into Zayn’s apartment, and Harry steps out. His eyes have adopted a crimson-purplish rim, like a synthesis of tears and exhaust, and he won’t directly meet Louis’ gaze. Not that Louis tries all too hard. When the five of them are together, Louis sticks to Zayn’s side, squishing himself between he and Liam and laughing half heartedly when Liam grumbles. Zayn’s mad at him, just a little, Louis knows that much; they all are, maybe. At Harry, too. Louis had promised they’d be careful.

They hadn’t been careful.

It hurts, is the thing. Louis’ entire chest aches violently with every fruitless breath he inhales. Like his lungs are waves, swelling, swelling, swelling, never cresting, never crashing. Forever unfulfilled. His soul misses Harry, misses his hair and his skin and his eyes. It manifests in his stomach and soaks through his fingertips. Leaves traces across everything he touches. The world is finger-painted with Louis’ longing.

“What’s wrong with you and Harry?” Niall asks one day, kind and harmless and simple. Liam is in the kitchen loading the dishwasher, and Harry and Zayn are out on the balcony, discreetly sharing a cigarette, as though Harry’s habit of occasional smoking was a secret.

Louis crossed his legs beneath him. Cold swirls in his gut and clamps around his wrists. “Nothing’s wrong with me and Harry.”

Niall sighed. “Liar.”

But he said nothing else.

“Lou.”

All movement stills. Louis closed the cupboard and tugged the hem of his sweatshirt down over his thighs. Then, he let it go.

“How’d you get in?” Louis murmured, twisting to look at Harry over his shoulder. His hair is greasy and his eyes are pale, clothes hanging limp off taut, vibrating limbs, pent up with potential energy and nowhere to be kinetic. His cheeks are sallow. They look worse in the harsh lamplight beaming from the ceiling.

A key sparks at Harry’s wrist when he shoves it in his pocket. “I’ve had my own key since before you moved in.”

He tugs his sleeves down over his hands so the sides of his mug don’t burn his palms when he lifts it up. “Why’re you here, then?”

Harry takes a step forward.

Louis takes one back. His spine jams against the drawer handle and sends sharp pain sparking through his frayed, uneasy nerves.

“Are you joking?” Harry asks, very, very slowly. Louis wants to be mad, but it isn’t a harsh question. His voice wavers with uncertainty and honesty. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

For a moment, everything in Louis goes quiet. All his attention siphons to Harry. “Hyperbole, or literal?”

“I don’t know.” Harry mumbles. His cheeks flame crimson. And then, “Hyperbole. But. Not always.”

“Where’s your inhaler?”

“ _Louis_.” Another step. He’s close enough to touch, if one of them reached out. “We both know it’s not allergies.”

And everything that had gone silent sparks to life again, loud and jarring and anxious, dancing across his bones. Louis looks down at the tiles beneath his feet. He’s thinking of the snakes in his diaphragm, shame and frustration and anger. Now, all that sits in their place is hollow noise, filling him up without satiating him.

“I’ve got work to do, Harry.” Louis says. For a heartbeat, he can feel Harry’s arms wrapped around him, tugging him close, holding him tight against his broad chest, and he wonders, maybe, if Harry would keep holding him no matter how much he squirmed away.

But he doesn’t bridge the gap.

“Yeah, Louis.” Harry says, voice crackling. Louis can’t look up to see his tears, but he still feels his heart splinter inside his chest, shattering apart like sugar glass. “I’m sure you do.”

He’s gone again.

He didn’t leave his key behind.

Louis stops going to group functions. It gets harder and harder for Zayn to look at him.

Niall takes him to a club one night. Louis flirts. And dances. And kisses. The man is nice. He kisses blandly. His hands are far, far too tight.

Louis pretends they’d still be too tight if they were Harry’s, but.

Their mouths part with a wet smack, and over the man’s shoulder, he can see Niall, watching him from a sticky bar stool, frowning sadly into his pint. He meets Louis’ gaze and shakes his head. Disappointed.

Louis leans over and throws up. Niall still comes to save him when the man starts yelling.

Liam wraps a hand around Louis’. “I am so, _unbelievably_ worried about you.” He says, and Louis’ heart falls to the pit of his stomach and erodes in the acid, burning, hissing. Aching furiously. It burns so hot his chest feels cold.

“Liam.” He begins carefully, as flames lick up the sides of his trachea and engulf his sinuses. “I’m fine.” He can feel his heart in the tips of his fingers. “I’m totally fine.”

“Louis, you haven’t looked me in the eye in five weeks.” Liam whispers.

And, it’s this: he’s telling the truth.

Louis’ chest hiccups.

He’s never been good at feelings. Not his own, anyway. When he was younger, still in secondary, sometimes Lottie would come into his room and cry into his shirt. But she’d never, _ever_ tell him why. He’d ask, over and over and over; _Charlotte, why are you crying? You have to tell me. I can’t help you, otherwise_. But her tears would salt the starched collars of his uniform and her paint-chipped nails would leave indents in the skin of his shoulder blades when he held her and her mouth would stay closed.

It’s the worst sort of pain, to love someone and watch them hurting empty-handed and alone.

If Louis looks at him, Liam will leave with a salted collar and the imprint of nails dug between his scapulae.

“It’s hard to explain.” He begins, very slowly.

“I’m well-versed in your language by now, Tommo.” Liam murmurs, gently, squeezing his wrist and then letting go. Louis stared down into his palms. Took a deep breath.

This shouldn’t be so hard.

“I like… I like different things. When I’m with Harry.”

Liam doesn’t go running and screaming from the room. He counts that as a good thing.

“It’s—” an impatient sigh. “It’s a frustrating thing to try and describe. But. Have you ever trusted someone with your life?”

Liam casts a soft smile towards his socked feet, and Louis can almost see the neon _Zayn_ flash over his head in blinking technicolor. “Yes.”

“That’s how I am with Harry. More than anyone else in the entire world. And—knowing that he’ll keep me safe, that he could protect me even if he were hurting me, it’s… it’s nice. Not having to protect myself. Giving up control. Because I know he’ll take it, no questions asked. You know?”

Louis’ almost sure Liam doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. “Sure.” He says.

The squirming returns to his chest. It’s far, far better than being hollow. “The thing is that it’s so… I’ve never trusted anyone like that. And realizing that I’m at the total mercy of someone else is slightly terrifying when it feels like they don’t understand the gravity of it. It’s—this is a crazy thing. And I don’t think Harry gets that. For him, all he has to do is hurt me a little. But for me, I’m putting my mind and my heart in someone else’s hands because I want to be free of them for a little while, but, even if I do want to be free of them, it’s still scary to have to hand it over. It’s not, like… it’s never something I imagined myself doing, or could ever possibly do with anyone else.” His head falls to his hands when the words in his head devolve to squiggles and lines and dots. “That makes no sense.”

“No,” Liam says after a moment, and his voice inflects somewhere between contemplative and surprised. “It does, actually.”

His squeak comes out between his fingers. “Promise?”

“Promise.” Liam chuckles lackadaisically, patting Louis’ shoulder gently, as if Louis will splinter like a porcelain doll beneath his touch, shards of pale lifelessness splintering the floor and the orangey rug. Louis wouldn’t bet against it.

“Can I, like…” Liam begins slowly. “Can I say something right now?”

Louis glanced at him from between his knuckles, eyelashes brushing against his skin. “No.”

“You and Harry are the most in love people I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” He says anyway. Louis’ chest clangs like a marble against tin, echoing, harsh and hollow. “There’s nothing that I could imagine keeping you guys apart. Harry… he tries for you. Just because he doesn’t know everything right away doesn’t mean he couldn’t come to understand. You could teach him. It’s—I mean, it’s a new thing for both of you, right? Just because you didn’t realize he was learning things from you like you were learning things from him doesn’t mean that he… wasn’t.”

Louis deadpanned. “You speak in mind-bending riddles.”

Liam huffed, but a smile sparked in the corners of his pouty mouth. “You and Harry are both learning. Give him some leeway. And,” he patted Louis’ knee. “Maybe talk about your feelings every once in a while.”

Which.

Might be good advice.

Louis’ hands shake around his phone.

_Come over?_

He hasn’t gotten a text from Harry in forty-three days.

A chime.

_Be over in a bit Lou_.

His beating heart skips. He sets the phone down.

“I don’t know how to do this.” Louis confesses, voice inflected with frantic nerves, hands clenching and unclenching atop the table. The words skid across the wood and stumble to a stop before Harry’s palms.

Harry doesn’t—he doesn’t look different, is the thing, but his lips are tight and spotted with bloody bites and his cuticles are torn to pieces and there’s a patchy scruff of facial hair over his cheeks that glints in the dry, severe light of the kitchen. His cheekbones stand starker than usual on his pretty face, jutting out beneath his purple-bruised eyes and casting grayish shadows across his cheeks. He’s still beautiful, but there’s careful delicacy to him today. Like he could splinter to pieces at the barest touch. Shatter all over the kitchen tiles.

Still, his voice is kind and patient when he speaks. “Do what, Louis?”

“Talk to you, like,” a futile gesture. “I don’t know how to have this conversation.”

The line of Harry’s full, bitten mouth thins, eyes shuttering. A muscle in his jaw feathers as he pushed out his chair. “I’m not going to sit through an hour of you keeping your feelings from me.” He snaps.

Anger flushes through Louis’ veins alongside his rushing blood. “Sit down.” He snarled. “I’m not finished.”

For a long moment, Harry only stares at him. The swirling pine in his gaze is soured by frustration and impatience. But. But beneath that, there’s fear, and longing, and vulnerability. Harry was foolish to think that Louis wouldn’t be able to see it.

This is hard for both of them. Louis never realized it before.

It’s why he murmurs “Please, Harry?” and smiles softly when, after another breathless moment, Harry slumps back into the seat with his eyes downcast and drums his fingertips on the table. At the base of his throat, his heartbeat races through his veins like the frantic hoofbeats of a flighty colt.

They stare at each other across the tension-washed tabletop.

“How do I start this?” Louis murmurs, almost to himself, driving the edge of his fingernails into the susceptible skin of his palm. 

Still, Harry responds. His voice is carefully neutral. “Why did you blow up at me.” It’s not a question.

“Harry, I…” Louis chokes on the words. “You…”

“What, Louis? What is it?”

“I just—” he can’t look Harry in the eyes. His brow drops painfully onto the table. “This is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s just a conversation, Lou, you don’t have to be scared.” Harry murmurs, sleeve shifting as he reaches out to brush his fingertips along the top of Louis’ head. It’s the first touch they’ve shared in ages, and Louis arcs into it, sighing. Suddenly, his words feel like a flood, pouring between his clenched teeth and bitten lips.

“Not the conversation. Us. You and I. Whatever possesses me to be how I am with you. It’s terrifying, Harry. Because I just… I feel like I’m giving every single piece of me to you. And sometimes it’s easy, and I don’t have to think about it, and sometimes…”

Harry’s fingernails scratch along his scalp. “Sometimes it’s scary.” He fills in the blank.

Louis lifts his head. He doesn’t look Harry in the face. Not yet. “I felt like—” he begins. His voice quivers dangerously, teetering on the precipice of falling to ruin, so he starts over. “I felt like you didn’t understand how hard it was. Is. For me. It’s—I felt like you could just brush it off, or not understand the intensity of it because you’re not the one giving so much up. I don’t… I don’t want you to be flippant. I’m trying… I’m trying to help you understand that this makes me feel absolutely fucked in the head sometimes.” He whispers. “That day… being,” he chokes, just slightly. “Being _punished_ like that was new and scary and out of my element, and I—I think I wanted you to be softer with me after I’d taken my consequence. I was still in a different place, but it felt like you didn’t get that, or… or didn’t care, or something.” A shuddery breath. “So.”

Finally, finally, Louis glances up. Harry is staring at the tabletop, scratching his fingernail along a knot in the polished wood, eyebrows furrowed deep in contemplation, lips pursed to one side as he chews on his cheek. His eyelashes sweep against his cheekbones like feathers.

They both take a deep breath in tandem.

“You don’t think this is hard for me, but it is.” Harry says finally, voice weighed heavy with veracity. “Of course it is. Half the time I feel guilty and the other half I can’t even look you in the face. You’re not fucked in the head, Louis. I want the same things you want, but, I mean… it makes me feel hellish and violent. You don’t think I’ve laid awake all night feeling like a pervert and a freak, too, but I have. It used to make me sick, how much I wanted to...”

Louis swallowed. “To?”

Harry’s eyes flicked up to look at him. “I—” he chokes. “To mess you up. And ruin you.” His throat bobs as he swallows. “To hurt you.”

Louis’ palm pressed against the cold wood of the table.

“Hurt me, then.”

They breathe in stuttered synchronization. The space between them echoes with silence, like a sealed tomb. Somewhere in the front room, Queenie meows.

Louis wants to hold Harry’s hand.

“I’m sorry that you felt that way, on that day.” Harry begins again, finally, breaking their heated gaze to push a hand through his dark, tangled curls. “That’s not how I felt, by the way. I would never take this… this situation lightly. It’s the most serious thing in the world to me. And you’re the most important. I was trying to comfort you, not be flippant. But I’ll do better. Just…” a wry, amused smile. “Maybe, next time, don’t wait six weeks to tell me about it?”

Louis laughs softly. Stupidly, ridiculously, he feels a bit like crying. The bare tips of Harry’s fingers brush across the veins in the back of his flattened palms. “I’m sorry.” He says quietly, head ducking.

But Harry only shrugs. “It’s in the past. I don’t want to dwell on it.”

Louis gave a firm shake of his head. “Me neither.” He said.

There’s easy quiet. It’s nice.

“I missed you.” He confesses finally, glancing carefully up through his damp eyelashes. Harry gives him a small smile, a bridge, and Louis takes it and holds it close to his chest. Tucks it into the space he didn’t realize was hollow.

Harry rounds the table and kneels at Louis’ feet, wrapping a scalding palm around his thin, bare ankle. “Come here?” He whispers, and Louis slides off the wooden seat to sprawl in Harry’s lap, tucked small and warm and safe, head beneath Harry’s chin. Louis hasn’t been this close to him in six weeks. It feels like longer. His skin smells the same, feels the same under wandering fingertips. His breaths ebb and flow the same. It’s pretty. Harry presses a kiss to the crown of his head.

He pets the back of Louis’ head. “I missed you, too, baby.” He murmurs, mouth against his ear, chest against his chest. 

There’s nothing in the world more than this.

For a breathless moment of lemon-bitter fear, Louis wants to break from Harry’s arms again. Scream. Cry. Fall to pieces.

Harry holds him tighter. The scruff on his face scrapes against Louis’ cheeks. He presses a kiss to the corner of Louis’ mouth, no more than a brush of his soft, bitten lips. And the tears crest in Louis’ blurry eyes, but none slip down his flushed face.

_I love him, I love him, he loves me, I love him_. Louis thinks.

“I’m right here, Lou.” Harry breathes.

The fear dissipates.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading !! say hi on [tumblr !!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/goodmorninglou)  
> love you all  
> <333


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lets just agree that i'm the worst and read the update  
> :))  
> KINKS IN THIS CHAPTER: possessiveness, dom/sub behaviors, nakey lou, idk y'all like it anyway  
> i am sorry :(( hopefully updates will be quicker now, love you !!  
> <333

It’s effortless, the ease at which they fall back together, like dominoes crashing across a hardwood floor. Magnets clinging together on the door of a fridge. They lock together, tangled in a pretty, dramatic sort of web, and Louis revels in it.

He missed Harry, while he was gone. Some days, he could pretend he didn’t. That he didn’t really care at all. But he did. He missed laughing breathlessly over a menial happenstance, a common amusement, because Harry being with him made it funnier. He missed sitting on the chilly countertops while Harry cooked, teasing him until he grinned into a pot and turned on ABBA. He missed falling asleep on the sofa with Harry’s head on his thighs and Harry’s hair threaded between his fingers. All of it. All of the stupid, beautiful things.

Harry’s voice crackles through the receiver pressed against Louis’ ear, atwitter with delighted amusement. It sparkles like the cut edge of a diamond and materializes in gold and loveliness before Louis’ eyes. “I bought a cactus.”

Louis laughed softly, shaking his head. His mattress was dizzyingly soft beneath his back, and his apartment was echoing with silence, and Queenie was asleep on his calves, and Harry bought a cactus. “Did you?”

“Yes, and I’ve named her Agatha, and she’s the love of my life.” Louis could hear the tinny noise of the tele playing in the background. Warmth was squirming in his tummy, akin to something colder, something a little sadder and far more yearning. “I’m serious, Lou. She’s so cute. She has a little pink flower! Like a bow!”

A snort bubbled up Louis’ throat and escaped between his teeth. “You’re absolutely ridiculous.”

“Don’t be jealous that I’m going to pay more attention to Agatha than I am to you. She and Elmer are in love and probably getting married soon. Who’s going to arrange the wedding but me? She’s a _cactus_.” Louis could almost hear him shaking his head. And then, in an exaggerated whisper, “Cacti can’t arrange weddings.”

“Idiot.” Louis grinned.

The quiet radiates softly between them, just the echo of their breaths through the crackling line, the complacent vibrations of their contentedness. For just a heartbeat, Louis remembers another phone call that looked like this; lovely, as they lay comfortable and silent on opposite sides of a phone, Louis cushioned on his mattress. He flushes crimson, and then magenta. Then, he pushes the memory away.

“How was your day?” Harry sighs gently.

They spent it together, but Louis doesn’t remind him of that. They’ve rarely spent a day apart. “My day was lovely. How was _your_ day?”

“Even better than the last.”

“Sap.”

“Loser.”

“Harry!”

“ _Baby_ ,” Harry croons, pouting at Louis’ reproachful tone, and Louis’ heart melts through the backs of his ribs and lands somewhere atop his coverlets, loose and unbridled, irrevocably drawn towards Harry’s own. “Don’t pull that tone.” He says.

Louis’ hand tightened into a small fist where it rested on his bare, warm stomach. “Sorry.” He murmured, without consideration. And then, “I can pull whatever tone I want.”

There’s something to that. Something to the fact that Louis’ gut reaction is to obey, and, only after, to act defiant. To act like he doesn’t live for Harry; for his voice, for his orders, for his soul. It’s just… that’s how it’s always been. That’s how they’ve always existed--opposing, in tandem. Addicted.

“Trust me,” Harry says, the smile implicit in his upturned, sparkly voice. “I know you can.”

“You are so mean to me.”

“Am not.”

Louis pouted into his pillow. “Are too.”

Silence blanketed them slowly, drawn up to their chins, warming their toes. Louis can hear the full, incandescent smile that lingers in the corners of Harry’s mouth, the edges of his perfect teeth, through the crackly receiver, and it makes warmth bloom beneath his incapable ribs like tumbling petals.

“Miss you.” Harry sighs sweetly, dulcet and chiffon. “Haven’t seen you in ages.”

“You left my house at 10:30.” Louis twisted his torso to catch a glimpse of the harsh, crimson numbers on his alarm clock. “It’s 11:42.”

“Still miss you.”

And that’s that.

Louis sank against his cool pillows, a sweet sigh bleeding between his lips like water tumbling over the tapered edge of a cliff. Harry mirrors the sound, and it dances through the receiver and settles on Louis’ chest, breathing in and out, staring at him until he inhales it, lets it burrow in his lungs. It tastes syrupy. Laced with affection.

Harry goes on after an interminable amount of sugary seconds. “Talk to me.” He murmurs. Louis knows his eyes are closed. “Want your voice.”

“Like Ursula?”

“Yeah, sign here, please.”

Louis snorted softly. “Dork.” And then, “What am I supposed to talk about?” He asks.

He thinks he could spend the rest of his miserable little life like this. Breathing and existing with Harry. Listening to his low, slow voice, like satin over gravel, droning ever on about whatever color or spark of sun catches his pretty eye.

There’s loud, crackling shuffles through the receiver as Harry shifts around in his sheets. Louis knows his eyes have closed, now. “Anything you want.” He sighs with rose colored sweetness.

“I like when you call me late at night.” Louis says. The admission slips between his teeth without resistance, far too easy, far too simple. It shouldn’t be like this. It should be confusing and grating and harsh against his skin.

But, it’s Harry. And everything has always, always been easier when it’s Harry. 

His voice is lower when he speaks again. “What else?”

Louis swallows against the butterflies fluttering up his throat. “I don’t know why you bought a cactus, you’re horrible at taking care of plants.”

“She’s literally the most manageable plant on the face of the Earth.”

“Hush.” Louis smiled against the darkness of his bedroom. “I wish you would’ve just slept over tonight because I already miss you. So does Queenie.”

He takes a deep breath.

“I like that you miss me even though you saw me just a few hours ago. And I like that you called me just to listen to my voice.”

“And to tell you about Agatha.”

Louis laughed softly. “And to tell me about Agatha, of course.”

Harry takes a long moment to respond. “I do miss you.” He says faintly, the ephemeral tenor of his voice lingering in the hollows of Louis’ ears, the corners of his mouth. Even the sound sends heat radiating through the aching atria of his heart, cottony and tepid, crafted in fervor.

The words blurt from Louis’ throat like sparks of hot, dry lightning, dancing through the air and the receiver of his phone before he can imagine bridling them. “Should I just come over?”

Silence seeps into his bones.

The synapses between his nerve endings thrum impatiently, embarrassed, hanging unevenly in the balance of anxious and giddy. Louis buries his face in the suffocating center of his pillow, face flooding with mortified fire. Absently, he raises a heel to slam it down against the mattress, teeth driving into the delicate skin of his cheek to keep from whining in shame.

“Yeah.”

Well.

Harry laughs. “Yes, you should absolutely do that.”

The world outside is cold, wet globs of snow trundling gracelessly through the chilly air, congregating on the sides of the dirty streets and beneath Louis’ soaked trainers, and the frigidity should nip and bite at his fingertips and the tip of his nose, but it doesn’t. Joviality heats him from the inside out. It’s nice.

The click of the tumblers in the lock sounds like gunshots as it radiates through the dark, empty hallway. The door to Harry’s flat is big and it’s yellow paint is peeling off in chips that Louis desperately wants to pick at. He refrains.

The inside of his flat is serene and dim, bathed in moonshine that seeps through the open curtains in swirling, gauzy sort of beams, thin and silver and watery. The only sound seems to be Louis’ own heart, clashing viciously against the weak underside of his ribcage. His blood rushes. Harry must be in his room.

Louis toes his shoes off and shuts the door.

Anxiety tightens his chest. Why is he nervous? It’s Harry.

It’s _Harry_.

He’s not sure what possesses him to strip out of his socks and toss them atop his shoes, but he does. He takes steps into the flat, hands quivering at his sides.

When he reaches the sofa, he pulls off his jumper and lays it meticulously over the arm. Leaves it hanging there.

There’s something different about tonight, something curling in the pit of Louis’ stomach that tastes like unequivocal desire and buzzes through his too-tight skin. Flashes of fantasy spark behind his eyelids, mirage themselves across the shadow-licked walls and taunt him with every step; he and Harry, Harry and he, always together, aching and moving and breathing. Harry three fingers deep in him, the cool ridges of his rings bumping at Louis’ rim with every torturous curl of his fingertips. Confident. Insufferable. Louis sitting astride Harry’s lap, sinking down on his cock, mouth wet and hair stuck to his brow, eyes rimmed with tears, a helpless flush bleeding from his cheeks all the way down his chest. He’d be absolutely desperate and Harry would be awfully cocky and they’d both love, love, love it.

He leaves his shirt in a heap on the floorboards before he turns into the hallway.

The cool air bites at his bare skin, sparking gooseflesh across the expanse of his arms, brushing over his nipples, and the floorboards are frigid beneath his uncovered feet. His steps quicken unconsciously.

He wonders if Harry would fuck him tonight.

He’s not sure where it’s all coming from, really. An hour ago he was chatting domestically with Harry about the cactus he bought, murmuring about how he liked when Harry missed him and making jokes about Disney movies, and now he can’t work or think or _breathe_ around the desire bubbling up in him, encompassing and insistent. He’s obsessive.

He shucks his joggers just outside Harry’s bedroom. They rustle as they hit the floor.

Harry’s breaths betray his consciousness when Louis slips through the door, even though his eyes are shut against the beam of moonlight that cants in from the window beside his bed. Louis knows how he breathes when he’s asleep. But Harry won’t move until Louis has settled beside him; until he’s sure that he has captured Louis’ attention, his devotion. He won’t even open his eyes. His rings lay in a haphazard pile on his end table.

Louis stands in the doorway for long minutes, admiring the serene plains of Harry’s face, the dip beneath his jaw and how shadows pool there, air caught painfully in his throat. Harry is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his entire life. He’s everything.

His stomach clenches and his hands vibrate with energy when he pulls his pants off his hips and discards them on the floor. His cock throbs hotly.

Louis pads across the room as silently as he possibly can, plush lower lip drawn between his teeth and bloodied in nerves, toes digging into the soft fibers of the carpet. Harry pushes the corner of his duvet back absently, arm flung out to one side. Louis smiles at his lethargic movements.

He wants this, he wants this, he wants Harry. He wants to touch and be touched.

He picks up Harry’s _H_ ring and slips it onto his thumb. Then, he climbs in Harry’s bed and curls against his side, lungs aching, heart racing.

Harry notices right away, he must notice right away, feeling the heat of Louis’ skin against his own, the bare expanse of his legs brushing against Louis’ naked thighs. Still, he reaches for him--takes him into his arms, holding him close. His hands settle low on Louis’ hips, where the absence of pants is intoxicating and obvious. His broad palms are hot. Louis wants to tattoo them there. Brand them into his skin.

“Lou.” Harry says.

Louis doesn’t know what to say. He tucks his face in the curve of Harry’s throat and sighs, shaky, purple, impatient.

The minutes pass in silence as the tension coils in Louis’ belly, red-hot and encompassing. He came here to sleep but now he’s restless, wide awake with his eyes closed, as Harry’s hands skid over his body, over his hips and his sides and his stomach and his shoulders but never where they _should_ be, never where Louis aches for them. Harry’s palms trace across the knobs of his bare spine. Louis breaks.

He squirms restlessly, cock hot and heavy against his thigh, stomach swirling with cloying arousal. “Are you going to…?”

The touch stills, and then begins again. “Are you going to ask?” Harry's voice has taken on that inflection, the guttural rasp, the dominance that makes Louis’ face flush and his hands tremble and his silly, stupid heart stutter over beats inside his chest.

He wants to whine. “No.”

“Then no.”

Louis nearly cries.

“Fuck you.”

Both of his wrists are taken into one of Harry’s hands, gripped so tight that they’ll be ringed with bruises in the morning. Louis’ brain bleeds out of his ears. He _knows_ he’s in trouble, he does, but--but there’s _this_ , this that they haven’t dared to tiptoe near since that day in Niall’s living room. Louis has missed this.

He twists his wrists just so Harry’s hold will constrict.

“Try again.” Harry says.

Louis whines and shifts his hips forward. “Harry.”

“ _Baby_.”

He swallows, shame burning through his face and his chest and the tips of his fingers where they curl around Harry’s biceps. “I’m sorry.”

Harry’s nose brushes along his cheek. “It’s okay.” A pause. “Do you want to ask?”

He can’t.

“I can’t.”

“Okay.”

Harry takes his hands off.

The panic rises in Louis’ chest like a breaking dam, flooding through him hot and sharp and sickening. He grapples for Harry’s hands, frantic, and feels his knuckles crash against Harry’s chest. “Don’t, _don’t_ , touch me, hold me--”

Harry shushes him quietly, lips against his brow, and pulls him closer than before. “You’re okay.” He murmurs, stroking up and down Louis’ back, from his shoulders to his hips, hot, long touches that make Louis’ ribs splinter and crack in some effort to break open, to give Harry access to his beating heart.

Louis squirms. His lips brush ephemerally against Harry’s collarbone. He can’t ask Harry to fuck him, to satisfy him, not tonight, but he can ask him to touch. “Harry?” His voice is breathy and high and ever, ever so wanting. 

“Darling.” Harry murmurs back.

His blood warms. “Touch my arse.”

Harry breathes out a sweet laugh against his cheek. “You think I should, baby?” He asks, and Louis grins, helpless to it, nodding into Harry’s chest.

“Yeah.” He chuckles happily.

Harry does so.

Louis can’t help but roll his eyes, victory swelling beneath his diaphragm like a prideful balloon. “You’re a pushover, you know--”

Harry fists a hand in his hair and _pulls_. “Be quiet.” He presses a kiss to the corner of Louis’ mouth. “Touched you because I wanted to.”

Louis tips his face up to look into Harry’s eyes, already on him, grayish in the dimming moonlight. “But,” his breath fans over both of their mouths. “You always want to, right?” He sounds like a child, insecure and inquiring, but Harry won’t judge him for it. Won’t say a word of it.

The hand that had fisted in Louis’ hair uncurls to stroke the back of his scalp gently. “Yes.” He sighs. “Always want to.”

Louis loves every facet of him with each spark of his nerves. It’s too big for him. He’s going to break apart beneath the force, and that’s okay, because Harry will gather the pieces of him and put him back together. That’s the inevitability of them. He’s naked and delicate and Harry is lovely and devoted and he’s strong and he takes care of Louis without complaint, touches and caresses and treasures him, like he’s crafted of glass and sand. Harry stares at the flaws in Louis’ soul and cradles them in his palms, unafraid and ardent.

Louis’ brow bumps against Harry’s chin when he shuffles closer. “You’re so good to me.” He breathes reverently. And then he whispers, “ _Harry_.” because he can, because it’s his to say, to lavish.

“You’re easy to be good to.” Harry murmurs back. His thumb swipes over the dimple at the base of Louis’ spine, palm sitting heavy over his arse, and this is heaven. It must be.

From anyone else, Louis would think it was a lie. But not from Harry. From Harry, he knows it’s true. He makes Harry good, and Harry makes him good, too. Their beings compliment.

There’s no more to say, so Louis says no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr !!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/goodmorninglou) please come chat i love talking to y'all so much :))  
> love you <333


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